


Walls and Holes

by PinetreeVillain



Series: Pine’s Asylum [1]
Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Asylum, Angst, Body Horror, Drowning, Drug Use, Graphic Violence, Graphic hallucinations, Horrible Things, Hose, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Isolation, Isolation therapy, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Harassment, Very awful treatment of the mentally ill, Water Torture, asylum AU, god Victorian mental health practices were horrible, hallucination, hydrotherapy, read author’s notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinetreeVillain/pseuds/PinetreeVillain
Summary: These will be the same hallways Henry Jekyll is going to see for the next four months of his 35 year old life. The man in front of him is going to become the conductor of his torment and the nurse beside him is going to resign in 5 days. The guard is going to become 1 of many, many more.Here within these walls and walls and walls, Dr Henry Jekyll is going to lose everything and nothing all at once.
Relationships: Dr. Henry Jekyll/Dr. Robert Lanyon, Edward Hyde & Henry Jekyll
Series: Pine’s Asylum [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1563913
Comments: 125
Kudos: 492





	1. Dialogue

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this idea shortly after one of the November updates (I think you know which one). I’ve personally always found that sort of thing incredibly intriguing if not incredibly messed up. The shit they did? Scary and upsetting. I am beyond grateful for the advancements they’ve made in this area of science. 
> 
> So disclaimer: Most of the information I use is/was very LOOSELY researched (but made to be as historically accurate as possible unless stated otherwise). Some creative liberties will be taken, after all this is FANFICTION and even the author of the comic doesn’t strive to be historically accurate. I’ve taken references from Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, The Wolfman (2010), Stonehurst Asylum, and a wide and varying array of internet articles and shitty YouTube videos. If you happen to know of some free, easily accessibly documentaries or info heavy articles, I would adore you if you linked them in the comments! 
> 
> I don’t know how consistently I will be updating this, but I have at least 4 installments in progress.
> 
> I also have a great deal of fanart that I’ve made for this, which I can certainly provide a link for, but you’ll find it best on my instagram (@pinetreevillain). 
> 
> Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinetreevillain/?hl=en  
> Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/asylum-au 
> 
> Enjoy????

“Good morning, terribly sorry for the wait. I was a bit wrapped up in an emergency.”

“I’m sure.” 

“I trust you found my office alright? I know the halls can be difficult to navigate.”

A beat. 

“Well then, I can tell you aren’t in any mood for pleasantries. I think I might know why you’re really here, Mr. Lanyon-“

“It’s doctor.”

“Of course, my apologies.”

“You damn well better know what I’m here for. You should consider yourself lucky I don’t have a lawyer with me.”

“There’s no need for that, everything being done here is perfectly legal. The treatment and care of the mentally ill is our top priority.”

“And I’m a unicorn.” 

Sigh. 

“Dr. Lanyon, if this meeting can’t go civilly I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come at a later date or, better yet, not at all. I have many patients that require my attention. The only reason we’re having this discussion now is both out of professional courtesy and that of your father.”

“Oh is that _all-_ “ 

“This sort of meeting is meant exclusively for family members and spouses of the patient. You’re here as an exception, Dr. Lanyon. One that can easily be changed.”

“I should be written on his list of relations.”

Paper.

“The only name written here is ‘Edward Hyde’.”

Shock. 

“That- _despicable wretch-_ “

“My time is of the essence, Doctor.” 

A breath.

“Under what accusations has he been admitted for?”

“As we’ve been over numerous times before, the authorities were made aware of his condition by an informant who wishes to remain anonymous. We took him in and after further evaluation of his character, found multiple behavioral anomalies that reached the qualifications for admission. Seeing as he is in no condition to make decisions himself and that he has no living relatives to speak of , the board has taken his situation into our capable hands.”

“‘Behavioral anomalies’, what rubbish is that? He’s not _crazy_ like the raving lunatics you have roped down in your basement, he’s just _tired_. He doesn’t need to be locked in a cage like some animal and poked in the face with tools, he needs to rest! He has to come home and sleep in his own bed.This was all some terrible mistake…”

“The witness claimed he was talking to himself, having entire conversations, responding and receiving answers from no one. He was also described as ‘paranoid, skittish, and increasingly hysterical’ and ‘reacted strongly, as if threatened, by thin air’. When we brought him in, he looked a breath away from fainting, you understand.”

“He’s been stressed about the Society. He tries to manage everything on his own, he’s so _stubborn_ sometimes to the point of idiocy.”

“He mentioned that.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

“Of course! We had an evaluation, but as it went on it became clear that ‘sleep-deprivation’ and ‘stress’ were not the only things behind his behavior. I actually have a few questions for you, Dr. Lanyon. You are the co-founder, you’ve known him the longest, spent the most time with him?”

“Yes… But not much in these past few weeks. He’s been busy, he’s not come to a stop since the month started.”

“Mmm. Does he have a history of missing sleep?”

“He was a restless sleeper when we were in school. I don’t know precisely how he is now, but I assumed it only got worse.”

“Does he have a history of fits?”

“Fits? What does that mean, _fits_?”

“He was quite hysterical when we brought him in for an evaluation-“

“Of course he was! Any sane person would be panicked if he were dragged to this hell hole against his will!” 

“Dr. Lanyon, please don’t raise your voice, some patients find it upsetting.”

“I’ll tell you what’s upsetting; what’s upsetting is my best friend has been admitted _against his will and everyone else’s _into Bethlam on the word of some- some unknown sod who jumped to conclusions?__

__“Who’s done this?! It sure as hell can’t be anybody we know! You’re just going to take the word of someone who doesn’t know Henry, or worse, hates him?”_ _

__“I am not at liberty to share that information.”_ _

__“You will once the lawyer arrives.”_ _

__“Dr Lanyon, there’s really no need for that.”_ _

__“If I wanted your opinion, _Doctor_ Silk, I would have _asked_.”_ _

__A beat._ _

__“Well, if that’s all you came to say, Dr Lanyon... I’m sorry, but I have a new patient that needs tending to.”_ _

__Silence._ _

__Someone down the hall starts screaming. Lanyon’s hand grips tightly to his own knee._ _

__“Where is he?”_ _

__“In his room.”_ _

__“Can I see him?”_ _

__Silence._ _

__“Please.”_ _

__“He’s with the nurses right now, he won’t be available for a few hours-”_ _

__“I can wait.”_ _

__“... Of course. You’re welcome to remain in my office until then. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”_ _


	2. Debate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A verbal debate takes place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick thank you to Gansey and DakotaTheWhale for beta reading this chapter. This one is longer than last chapter, there’s more going on, and you also get to witness my attempts to write professionals. Not easy. Hhhh I’m probably going to notice a bunch of things I’ll want to change later, but the idea of this series is that I don’t stress myself with that kind of stuff and I just type what I want to. 
> 
> Anyway! Thank you VERY much for all the lovely comments you guys have left me, they make my heart go UwU

For three hours and 13 minutes Lanyon sat in the office, crossing and uncrossing his legs and looking back and forth between his fidgeting hands and the clock mounted on the wall. He watches the hands with furrowed brows and he considers any of the possible reasons why a clock so high upon the wall needed metal bars installed over it. 

When the second hand finally ticks over the 14th minute, the rich wooden door swings open. 

Robert is on his feet to meet Dr. Silk as the doctor leads in what looks to be a veritable entourage. 

“Have a seat, Dr Lanyon,” Dr. Silk says by way of greeting. Lanyon does not, instead he moves quickly to meet the three guards bracketing Henry in halfway, shocked, and not the least bit calm as his quelled anger resurges at the state his friend is in. 

Henry isn’t wearing the clothes he’d arrived in. Instead it’s baggy canvas that throws Lanyon’s own brain off trying to associate it with his often so sharply dressed companion. It hangs off his shoulders and makes him look small; especially between three largely built men. The circles under his eyes have never been more pronounced, like dark bruises that make the bloodshot and red of his eyes stand out in a sickly way. He looks haggard, on the verge of breaking down, and somewhat mildly deranged. He’s shaking like a leaf and, when Lanyon finally reaches him, he’s dripping wet and cold to the touch. 

“My God, Henry, you’re freezing-“

“Robert, this is wrong, this is all wrong-“ To his credit, Henry Jekyll keeps his voice low, if not rushed.There’s a tremor in his voice that Lanyon’s never heard before and it scares him stiff. “You have to tell them… You have to tell them I’m not crazy.”

“What do you _think_ I’ve been saying?” Lanyon works his hands over Henry’s shoulders, trying nervously to work warmth back into his body.

“They won’t _listen to me_ , Robert. They think I’m insane!” Jekyll looks frightened of the volume in his own voice and he leans in closer, hushed, like a secret. “They think I’m insane, Robert, they want to keep me here for a month, a _month_ -“

“I won’t let them, Henry,” Robert tells him, mimicking his tone. He pulls Henry closer. “I’m going to do everything that I can. I won’t let them keep you, I promise.” 

“Robert, I can’t, I can’t do it,” Jekyll concedes. “They won’t listen to anything I tell them because they think I’m crazy. Please, please don’t let them keep me here. You know what they do to people here!” 

Lanyon prepares to soothe him more but Dr. Silk clears his throat.

“Gentlemen? If you would have a seat please?”

“I’d like to talk to speak to Henry privately,” Lanyon responds. 

“I’m afraid that’s against protocol,” says Dr. Silk, not looking sorry at all. “Given Henry’s condition, we can’t leave him unsupervised.” 

“That’s rubbish.”

“Robert!” Henry looks shocked. 

“What’s he going to do to me?”

“It’s just protocol, Dr. Lanyon. I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t!”

“Robert, please.” Henry’s voice comes, firmer than before, pulling Robert back both figuratively and physically with a hand on his arm. Even now, with his well-being on the line, Henry is still every bit the mediator. Lanyon finds it in himself to relax, exhaling through his nose and putting himself between Henry and the hospital staff as he ushers him over to the chairs. 

When they’re all seated, Dr. Silk pulls his glasses off his nose, folds them beneath his hands and he looks between them with the same demeanor of a school’s headmaster regarding frequent offenders; a patronizing expression of sympathy that’s meant to soften the blow of expulsion. Lanyon decides right then and there that he hates this man. 

“Gentlemen, I understand this is quite an unfortunate series of events that have occurred. You have a business to run, I know. However, we can’t allow Henry to continue his work in the condition that he’s in. He poses as both a danger to himself and others.” Lanyon fights a retort. “The only course of action is to ensure Dr. Jekyll’s full recovery by keeping him here and treating his insanity with our state of the art technology and medicine-“

Lanyon’s appalled bellow of “Insanity?!” does little to cover up the devastated noise that Jekyll makes from beneath his hands. 

“I think _that’s_ a little rash don’t you think?” Lanyon nearly laughs. “Exhaustion is _not_ insanity!” 

“I would be inclined to agree with you if that were the sole case here, Dr. Lanyon. Unfortunately, Jekyll displays advanced symptoms of delirium and confusion, not to mention paranoia that is incredibly common among the insane. From the short amount of time we’ve had him, he’s done nothing but confirm our worries. He’s yet to demonstrate the most severe of the accusations the witness made, but we cannot simply brush something as severe as that off.”

“ _He_ is not insane,” Lanyon spits. He’s never been this angry before, and Henry’s hunched shoulders and silence do absolutely nothing to help it. 

Dr. Silk sighs. It’s a burdened-sounding thing that baffles Lanyon into silence. For a man who sounds so apologetic and unwilling, he’s shown no inclination in neither Lanyon nor Jekyll’s favor. He looks tired, like this is the same conversation he’s had multiple times over. 

“I’m afraid nothing else can be done,” Dr. Silk says with folded hands. 

“What are our options?” Lanyon tries, sensing thinner ice where he treads. Dr. Silk’s lips thin as he begins shuffling through the papers on his desk. 

“Patients admitted to the program are required to spend a minimum of three weeks under mine or Dr. Tyson’s care. However, if the patient shows marked improvement, there is a likelihood of early discharge if the patient’s family or next of kin can afford the early release fee.”

“How early is that?”

“It can be anywhere from a week to two weeks, depending on how long it takes for the board to process the request in addition to the patient’s condition.” 

Lanyon looks at Henry. 

There’s a tremor in his shoulders, one that Lanyon instinctively reaches to soothe. Henry jumps under his hands, finally uncovering his face and looking up at the two of them. He meets Robert’s eyes first, and his red gaze darts over Silk with that same analytical care he does everything. Then they’re back on Lanyon. 

There’s silence as they exchange words without speaking. They used to always have that ease between them, this ability to communicate without needing to exchange a single spoken word. Lanyon hasn’t been able to read Henry in nearly 2 years, but right now, with the guillotine hovering just above them, deciding whether they can afford to keep arguing or accept that there truly is nothing that can be done, it’s the easiest thing. 

And Robert does not like what he sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not saying that TGS Dr H. Robert Lanyon is my favorite fictional character, but TGS Dr Robert Lanyon is my favorite fictional character.


	3. Evaluation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A session with the doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This lass is a lil longer than the other ones! She’s thicc. There’s a lot to unpack. 
> 
> After this one, the fun finally begins.

“Good morning, Henry.” Dr Silk smiles. “How are you feeling?” 

Henry tries to find the answer in the floor tiles. He says, stiffly, “Cold.”

Dr Silk’s smile doesn’t leave his face. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, are you uncomfortable?” 

Henry’s lips thin and he tries not to think about the screaming woman that kept him up all night. 

“Yes.” 

“Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?”

Henry looks him in the eye. Dr Silk let’s out a weak little laugh. 

“Besides let you leave, of course.”

Henry looks away.

Dr Silk sighs, “Right. Let’s get this over with, then you can continue your day and start your routine.”

Henry tries not to think about what his “routine” might be. 

Dr Silk pulls his chair up to where Henry is seated with his hands fisted in his lap. The doctor’s hands lift to his throat and feel around his larynx with warm dry fingers. Henry fixes his eyes on the ceiling. 

“Did you sleep well?” Dr Silk asks. 

“Yes,” Henry lies. 

Dr Silk draws away and writes something down on his clipboard. He checks Henry’s eyes. 

The check up proceeds as usual, and when Dr Silk pulls away, there’s something distinctly haunting about the small smile on his face. 

“Now…” Dr Silk crosses his legs. “Tell me about these… _things_ you see.”

Henry… He doesn’t know, what could he possibly say? He can’t… He can’t _tell them_ that would… That would be signing his own death warrant. But he can’t say nothing either, they’ll take it for an answer. Henry runs through every possible response, anything at all, but the more he thinks about it the harder it becomes, the more incriminating it sounds in his head. He’s damned if he does, he’s damned if he doesn’t. Maybe he could just try what he always does, open his mouth and talk his way out of it. But his usual method, when looked at for what it is, with the backdrop of a hospital examination room, with the sounds of someone screaming down the hall (there’s always someone screaming it seems), the report filed against him that this doctor is thinking about and applying to everything and anything Henry says or does-

‘ _Tell him about the living dead man you saw in the hallway this morning. Or about the headless lion woman that stood over you while you slept. That one’s pretty good. Or the demon that was chewing on Lanyon. Oh! How about, the voice in your head? He’ll love that one._ ’

“Your face changed, what’s on your mind?”

Henry blanches. If he’s that easy to read, what else has he noticed? 

‘ _Say “you”._ ’

“It’s okay, you can say whatever you want. It’s all confidential.”

_”That’s Johnathan,” A women whispered in his ear over breakfast that morning, completely unaware of personal space. She leans heavily on his shoulder, her wispy whiskey hair tickling the side of his face and she points with her spoon. “He’s been here for four months. Deranged psychosis. The doctors have tried everythin’: the water, the medicine, the straps, but he just don’t seem to be gettin’ any better. I think they’re gonna give him to Tyson.”_

Henry licks his lips. 

“Take your time,” Dr Silk says, patiently. 

He does have a whole lot of that now, doesn’t he? Or maybe not. Henry schools his expression into a neutral one. 

There’s a chance he can get out of here in a week. If he can play his cards right, he can get out of here. He can give the bare minimum, the least incriminating of it all, get through whatever treatment they prescribe, and Lanyon, Rachel, and the Society will be waiting for him on the other side… With a very bruised reputation. 

Maybe nobody knows? Lanyon’s quite good at steering the topic and answering questions without _actually_ answering them. 

‘ _Oh, people definitely know._ ’

Henry just won’t tell them about Hyde. 

On that thought, Henry raises his eyes to meet Dr Silk’s, and he shifts his body to emulate reluctance. Dr Silk waits. 

“I see… Animals… And monsters.” 

Dr Silk writes on his clipboard. 

“Sometimes people.”

“What sort of people?”

Henry folds his hands together, “S-sick people…”

He thinks of Moreau. 

“And dead ones.”

“Can you see them clearly?”

“Yes,” Jekyll says, strained. 

Dr Silk nods his head slowly, writing and then turning back to Henry. His lips thin and then he asks, “Anyone you recognize? Or just strange faces?”

Henry thinks, then shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

“Are you sure?”

Henry considers the pros and cons of telling him about Moreau. On the one hand, Moreau did publicly assault the Society, as well as aid in the destruction of half the city block (although Hyde was forced to take the credit for most of it regardless). Although he’s not quite sure why, Henry has found himself haunted by the man’s image (Hyde’s antics notwithstanding). Henry thinks about it a little harder. Perhaps on that subject matter he _should_ be seeking a professional opinion. 

‘ _You need a professional opinion for way more than just_ that.’

“I… I do recognize one of them…”

“Could you tell me who?”

“Ah… D-doctor Moreau.” Dr Silk nods in response to that, writing some more. Henry waits, nervously watching the doctor write more than he had before. 

“He attacked the Society didn’t he?” 

“He did, he was pursuing-“ Henry bit his tongue before he could say anything damning, “-one of the Lodgers.”

Dr Silk writes some more. “You weren’t there that evening though, were you?”

“No, I had been at home. I-I did see him the following morning, at the station. We had a, ah, rather unpleasant exchange.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He spit in my face.”

“Goodness.”

“Yes, however, his appearance was particularly more troubling. I take it was something of a miracle that he survived.”

“Hmmm.” Dr Silk finally stops writing. His gaze remains on Henry now, looking very deep in thought. Henry is more than alright with silence.

“What sort of animals? You said monsters?”

Henry reels at the sudden change of subject, “All sorts. Like some sort of colorful children’s book. Except, not for children. Not for anyone really.”

“Could you be more specific?” Dr Silk adjusts his glasses. 

“Like…. Lions. And… dogs.” 

“What kind of dogs?”

“Big ones. With large teeth.”

“Wolves?”

Henry doesn’t laugh, but it’s a near thing. “No, just big dogs that look wrong.”

Dr Silk looks at him as he says that.

“Why was that funny?” Dr Silk asks, asking a different question than what Henry wanted him to. He must take too long to answer or he’s making another micro expression because Dr Silk continues, “You smiled when I asked if it was wolves. Why?”

Henry’s thrown off, not so much by the question itself, but the interest. He knows it’s a psychiatrist he’s speaking to, that this is to pick apart and analyze his brain and behavior to the very last inch. But… Dr Silk is listening, eyes fixed intently on Henry with a neutral but encouraging expression. Henry thinks no one’s ever actually been _interested_ in what he has to say. He’s not sure what to make of that.

“I, uh… I like wolves.”

“Really?” Dr Silk writes that down too. “Why’s that?” 

Henry thinks, _that’s a weird question_ , then he actually thinks about it. He’s more interested in werewolves, really. But… Wolves are pack animals, he knows. He’s not sure if werewolves are, he’s really only met the two and he knows Jasper comes from a big family but he doesn’t think that counts, since he knows Jasper was turned fairly recently. And it was probably for the best that Morcant was the only one he encountered in the wilderness. He had the barrier of medicine and injury keeping her from killing him.

“I can see why, I think,” Dr Silk wonders while Henry is lost in thought. “You told me yesterday about the Society and all the Lodgers. They’re sort of like wolves, aren’t they?”

Henry doesn’t like where this is going. Dr Silk must see it in his face.

“Wolves are pack animals, are they not? They move in large groups, live together, hunt together as a unit, supporting one another. Fiercely loyal creatures, I read once. They never leave another behind. They’re poorly misunderstood beasts. Quite intelligent but they have a bad reputation.

“That’s sort of like your Society, isn’t it? A pack of scientists living together in a safe environment. You’re looking after one another and striving to end the stigmas around mad science.”

“We prefer the term rogue science,” Henry can’t stop himself. Dr Silk smiles, this one is almost genuine. 

“Rogue science, yes.” Dr Silk nods. “I guess that sort of makes you the head wolf, hm? The alpha.” 

_No that’s definitely Rachel_ , Henry thinks. 

_‘This guy is crazy.’_

Henry nods, aiming to look considering. He wants this to end. 

“I’d never considered that.” That much is true at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made quite a few new discoveries while this chapter, I got to really dig into Jekyll’s psyche. Hahah it’s a fuckin’ mess in there lmaaao. 
> 
> But I’m actually really pleased with how this chapter came out. It was a lot more interesting than I thought, and I’m quite please with my wolf analogy -3-
> 
> Hm? Alpha?


	4. The Hose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Routine begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to insert an image on here and it didn’t quite work, so until I figure that out OR if someone is generous enough to help me out, this will remain exclusively written. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter! From here on out it is going to be Bad Times for Dr Henry Jekyll

The routine is worse than he ever considered. 

Part of Henry was convinced his status might cushion some of the fall, but he realized, in hindsight, that that was wishful thinking, something truly absurd enough to only be believed by a mad man. 

There are long cold hallways of harsh ceramic tile under bare feet with twisting halls and a seemingly endless number of doors. This is the body of the hospital, Henry thinks. The wing Dr Silk’s office resides in along with the hospitality center and the patient lounges are furnished with fine wood furniture and decorated. Welcoming guests and visitors to a homely, almost rest-home feeling place with oil paintings and doilies. 

The medical wing is as cold as the outside of the building. 

It couldn’t be farther from home. 

Bethlam is constantly abuzz with activity, sound, and movement, which honestly wouldn’t be much different from the Society if the atmosphere weren’t on the complete opposite. The sorts of activity is nothing like the bustle of the Lodgers circulating from room to room on their mad searches for means to their scientific ends. There are doctors and guards and patients moving around too, but the guards drag limp, unseeing and often screaming patients ( _screaming, there’s always screaming, it reverberates down the halls like wailing ghosts and Henry doesn’t know if they’re real or Hyde just messing with his head_ ). Doctor’s lead or follow patients in and out of rooms and hallways, sometimes they lurk around the corners of rooms, talking to nurses, sipping tea with a newspaper or clipboard like an average person on their tea break and not an asylum doctor in the middle of a mad house. Henry typically wouldn’t be one to judge, he sometimes took tea in the aquarium while Bryson juggled tools with the repair Kraken and Luckett blew something up. But the walls are different, sound doesn’t carry the same, and Henry knows there’s a difference between the sounds of progress and the sounds of misery. Henry always tries his best not to stare. 

On top of that there’s an underlying permanent restlessness that Henry always feels closing in on the back of his heels. It feels like he can’t get away from it, like it will always be right at his back, breathing down his neck. 

That one might just be _Moreau_. 

To his left is a guard with a mask over his face. To his right is a nurse with his papers. Leading them is Dr Silk. 

This will be their typical arrangement for the next four days. These will be the same hallways Henry Jekyll is going to see for the next four months of his 35 year old life. The man in front of him is going to become the conductor of his torment and the nurse beside him is going to resign in 5 days. The guard is going to become 1 of many, many more. 

Here within these walls and walls and walls, Dr Henry Jekyll is going to lose everything and nothing all at once.

* * *

Of all the things they have lined up, Henry hates the hose the most. 

Their voices are soothing and gentle and condescending. The men have large invasive hands that grab and move him wherever they want him. The nurses hush and coo at him when he shakes and screams and they comfort him without any real concern. Like an annoying child, the kind that screams and adults are losing their patience with. 

Dr Silk stands and watches with his clipboard. Sometimes he’ll say something meaningless like “you’re doing well, Henry” or “just like that, that’s good”. Once he came over to brush the wet hair out of Henry’s face. 

Jekyll has watched Hyde through bar fights, brawls, alley mugging, fisticuffs; Henry himself has survived werewolves and the bone-crunching, spinal-rearranging terror that is becoming Hyde to say nothing of the dangers of a building full of unbridled scientists at work. He knows danger, he knows caution. He knows his life flashing before his eyes and adrenaline pumping through your veins in that muscle-clenching gut clenching fight or flight. Henry Jekyll knows danger. 

Henry feels danger like its a second skin now. 

Henry doesn’t know what the hell the health benefits of being blasted in the chest with a water hose are.On the first day, after his session with Dr Silk, he’d been foolishly compliant when they’d brought him into the room. That changed quickly. 

The shackles were a bit low for someone of his height and they held his arms open wide, chest exposed with nowhere in particular to put his feet. Like the crucifixion of Christ, he was held open like a demonstration. 

Then he was blasted in the chest by a jet of freezing water that felt more like a hard unrelenting pummel of fists that knocks the breath from his lungs. It doesn’t stay at his chest either, the man at the other end of the torrent of water aims it up and down his body like it will make any sort of difference. It hurts more against his stomach, worse below the waist, and it’s unspeakable above the neck. Literally. Henry couldn’t fathom speaking when it’s already nearly impossible to breathe. Turning his head away makes it minutely more bearable but it blows out the hearing in his ear for hours afterwards. 

Sometimes it was out of his mouth long enough for him to scream, but mostly he was trying to stay conscious. It fills his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. It burns his nostrils and wrecks his throat, filling his stomach and lungs until it’s just water, water, water. 

It felt like hours. 

It felt like hell. 

They did it until he was shaking, sagging against the wall, panting and weeping for air and Silk told him _you’re all done, you did very well_.

* * *

They hose him twice a day, once before breakfast, once before dinner. 

Today is Wednesday, Dr Silk said so when he’d asked. Today is Wednesday, it’s been five days.

Henry sags listlessly against the wall, wrists aching and bleeding from the wall mounted shackles. Water drips down his face and into his eyes, nose, and mouth. He’s staring darkly into the puddle at his feet, watching it sink slowly into the drain three feet away. He’s shivering. He’s been shivering since they turned the water off. He’s not listening, he can’t quite hear from his left ear and it’s currently pressed into his shoulder, trying to get the right angle to meet his eyes in the reflection in the water. 

_Only 5 days_ , Henry wants to moan. He wants to sob, but he’s soaked, it wouldn’t make a difference. It wouldn't feel like anything, it would all just… Melt together. Everything’s melting together, his thoughts, his words, his speech these days, he can’t even stand upright without swaying, his body hurts, his head hurts, he can’t think straight, god, the woman just _would not stop screaming-_

There’s a squeak of metal and Henry flinches on reflex. The rattle of keys is all the warning he gets before his wrist comes free and the guard that’s unchaining him puts a hand to his chest to keep him from falling and breaking his other wrist. They get him sort of on his feet, push him onto one of the benches that line the wall. When they towel him off this time, he lets them with little resistance. 

He tries to breathe as steadily as he can, bones aching. His rib cage feels tight. 

He doesn’t realize someone is talking to him until Silk is standing right beside him. Henry can’t bring himself to even lift his head, his neck hurts so much. Silk drops down to Henry’s level, an elbow on the bench to balance himself as he speaks. 

Henry’s ears are still ringing and his jaw hurts so all he can do is stare at Silk’s moving lips. Henry’s vision fuzzes, could be for a few seconds to a few minutes, but when he gets it back, Silk is staring at him expectantly. 

“What?” Is all Jekyll can get out. Silk’s face takes on that patient quality again and he snaps a finger in Henry’s good ear. 

“I was asking if you were feeling up to any visitors today,” Silk asks, voice louder, words carefully articulated. It takes several moments for Henry’s brain to resolidify before he can even begin to decipher what that means. When he finally does, something flutters in his stomach. 

“Who?” Silk smiles at the hopefulness of Henry’s voice.

“A Miss Pidgley has called and monopolized your visitor’s slot for the week.” Dr Silk takes the look on Jekyll’s face as answer enough. “She’ll be here when visiting hours start at noon. We’ll come find you during your recreational period, Nurse Walters will be in attendance, she’ll take you.”

That sounds…

Like very good news. 

Henry lets out a long exhale. He nods, schooling his expression into one that’s more composed. 

That sounds good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, I wish I knew how to write longer chapters to give you guys something more interesting to read :/


	5. Penny Dreadful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *wiggles eye brows* Hey folks do I got some OC and Art content for you!!! Time to introduce.... SIDE CHARACTERS!!
> 
> Please, does anyone know how to insert images to html

The recreational period is a fancy name for the indefinite length of time between treatments that isn’t isolation. There are many other patients that need treatment and all of Dr Silk’s time can’t be spent on Henry alone. 

There are countless wings and rooms, full of the senile, the skittish, exhausted, hysterical, delusional, sick, tired, disobedient… Need he go on? 

For the size of the hospital’s numbers, there simply isn’t anything to do. If you’re not eating during meals, in session with the doctors, sitting in your room, punished downstairs, or outside, you are simply laying in bed and doing… Nothing. 

There honestly isn’t much to do, and for Henry’s perpetually active mind, he thinks the idleness might be what drives him crazy. 

Some patients though, the ones that can be trusted on their own, are allowed to walk the ground floor’s promenade. Henry is among these. These floors of course have guards and nurses at every corner, with papers, pushing wheelchairs, just being of general assistance. From afar it truly is a comfortable environment with staff that dote on and watch over the patients. 

Patients on the ground floor are permitted recreational activities. Henry has seen a deck of cards; he spotted a nurse playing chess with the old man that’s always by the window; he watched three young men draw shapes on the floor with chalk and play a confused version of hopscotch.

These patients are the easiest for Henry to get along with, the ones on the ground floor. He’s seen, while wandering the halls he’s allowed to, the patients that go upstairs, or get brought down to the basement levels. He tries not to think about those, why they’re there, and how they got there. He knows the other day one of the ground floor patients was brought downstairs for biting one of the guards. It didn’t matter that the guard had been flicking him and mocking him when he whined at the pain. 

(Henry remembers his first day walking the promenade. An old woman had tripped and fallen and Henry, on reflex, rushed to help her. As he’d gotten a hand around her arm, she’d looked up so sharply that Henry had feared he’d made a terrible mistake touching her. A nurse was on them immediately and before he could brace himself for any possible shrieking or thrashing, the old lady’s sweet wrinkled face curled into a charmed, toothless smile. She thanked him as he helped her to her chair, the nurse hovering at their backs. Once she was seated, she took his hands into her own soft trembling fingers. Her squinted old eyes opened, clear and watery blue. She patted them, smiling still and said through Spanish rolls of her tongue, “Ah, you have an alchemist’s hands. No wonder they are so steady.” Henry wasn’t sure what to make of the warm weak feeling that unfurled in his chest, but he’s made sure to visit her each day.)

There is little to do in Bethlam (or Bedlam as some of the residence call it) but walk around, sit around, lie around, and talk. There is however, a place that Henry likes to do those things specifically. 

There’s a large garden outside Bethlam Hospital. Dr Silk calls it the “airing court” and the nurse’s call it what it is. Henry has been outside in the garden every day since he was admitted and if he weren’t so unnerved by the circumstances, he would hazard to say it’s pleasant. There are exits to the garden at the ends of every wing and one in the lounge. Henry’s sure there must be more, he’s seen the doors from the outside, but he doesn’t know what rooms they lead to, nor can he bring himself to care. He’s been too nervous to approach any of the windows yet, wary of the security guards that walk the perimeter of the garden with truncheons and large clenched fists. The grass is green and well kept and Henry wonders, as he takes in the immaculate shrubbery, where they go about keeping a gardener. The entire estate is large, and strictly fenced in with tall cast iron bars that no one, not even a particularly skilled climber, would have any luck climbing. 

Not that he’s considered it. 

_Not yet, anyway._

Today it’s partly cloudy and the lady that likes to sit in the middle of the path is singing Christmas carols. No one is screaming (at least not outside) and Henry’s wearing a dry set of clothes. 

The patients out here are usually the loud ones. The nurses bring them out because they’re disturbing the quieter patients, or because they are simply too annoying to keep indoors for extended periods of time. Henry knows this, because he thinks he might have accidentally annoyed one of the nurses a few days prior, and he is familiar with some of the more bothersome patients. 

Penny is her name. She looks to be around his age but he honestly has no way of knowing. One minute she looks as youthful as a young woman fresh from college, the next she looks as if she’s weathered every possible famine and back alley fight. She has whiskey blonde hair that looks like the fuzz you find inside of pillows and her eyes are brown, wide and curious and deceptively observant. 

She walked up to him his first morning in the garden and the first thing she said was, “You know cats exist in every dimension? That’s why they see everything. Their eyes can see through all existences, so they see all the versions of you there is. That’s why we think we see ghosts, yeah? Because we think they’re dead spirits, but really it’s the shadows of the still living versions of themselves trying to fill the space the dead version left behind.”

He’d responded with a cautious, “I do believe that’s called ‘the 6th sense’,” and she’s not left him alone since. 

He doesn’t know how long she’s been here. She seems to know the place quite well and she knows almost every nurse, guard, and doctor by name. How, Henry doesn’t know. He can count on one hand how many names he’s been told in the five days he’s been here. 

He doesn’t know what she’s been admitted for, either. Penny knows just about everything about everyone that’s been admitted here and she doesn’t hesitate to share the details, and while she’s neglected to give any insight on her own case, Henry has a good idea. She stares off into space occasionally, fingers twitching and body rigid. Occasionally she might sway. 

Henry does his absolute best to keep up with her, both physically and verbally. She speaks at a mile a minute and her voice is high and raspy, but not harsh. It’s like a recovering smoker. She’s the same height as him and nowhere to go that you can’t see from one end of the garden, but she makes like she has places to be. 

All in all, she’s the first and only person he’s met that hasn’t started screaming, attacked him, or looked utterly inconvenienced by his audacity to exist. 

“You’re making a funny face.” Penny’s voice disturbs him and he realizes that yes, smiling might as well be a funny face to be making. She’s leaning down, bent nearly in half so she can peer up at Henry’s face. He stands straighter. He’s usually not one to forget his posture but it’s been slipping his mind lately.

“I’m seeing a friend today,” is all he can think to say. Penny’s face remains unreadable and she stares at his face for several moments (a tendency she has that had unsettled him the first few times it occurred but he has come to expect).

“I di’n’t know you ‘ad friends,” Penny says. 

“I do.”

“How many?” She asks, unprompted. Henry takes it in stride, though not particularly gracefully.

“I have, well,” he starts, unused to thinking about it. “I should say three.”

“Three’s a good number. It’s one of the best numbers. Three is the holy number. Triangles have three sides and points, you know, and triangles are the most important shape in nature. You see triangles everyday of your life, you just don’t notice it until someone points it out.”

“Astute observation.”

“Which friend is visiting? Is it the angry man that yelled a lot?”

“No, it’s not him.” Henry doesn’t know why that makes him smile more. 

“Who is it? They must be very nice.”

“Yes, she’s perhaps the best there is.” 

“Are you in love with her?”

“Ah, no, I’m not.”

“She must really care about you.” 

Henry thinks about that. He thinks about Rachel Pidgley, the Society’s cook and day manager. He thinks how she runs the Society on her own two feet, the backbone, he should say. Honestly, he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. Rachel’s incredible constitution and tireless attitude are admirable but her naturally giving and kind nature is unparalleled. She’s unshakable, but agreeable, and intelligent to boot. Sure she’s not a scientist, but she has a way with people that Henry is utterly envious of. She thinks of every single Lodger, the mother of the household. She’s got her hand on every frying pan and she still makes time to stop by his office and check in. On days he spends several hours in his office at a time and Lanyon isn’t there to shepherd him through basic human necessities, she takes it into her own hands just as well, if not better. She’s done it to both of them once or twice. 

When he thinks of a good person, he thinks of Rachel. 

“I suppose she does.” He can’t imagine why. Though, he supposes that’s just the way she is. She frets and worries about anyone who steps foot across the Society’s threshold.

“I like her,” Penny decides, despite not even knowing her name let alone anything about her that would lend to that decision. Henry wonders, not for the first time, what a person like Penny is doing in Bethlam Hospital. She would have loved the Society. The Lodgers would have loved her. 

Penny is staring at the tree line that obscures the garden from the hospital’s road. Her gaze is as vacant as it always is. Henry wants to ask if she’s had visitors, but he doesn’t. He’s not asked any questions about her personally, or any questions at all for that matter. She usually talks and tells him things whether he wants to know them or not. Part of him is worried it will upset her, and he does not want to risk the companionship they’ve started. 

Penny turns to him suddenly, whipping around so fast Henry jumps. 

“Do you like people?” She demands. She barrels on before he can respond, “Because we get lots of people. Not this week, the nurses don’t like people here when it’s supply week, it’s a whole lot of mess and it’s too much work keeping track of inventory, patients, and guests.”

“Guests?”

Penny doesn’t answer, suddenly interested in the woman singing “Auld Lang Syne”. He makes to follow her, try and get her to tell him more, but the nurse, Miss Walters, stops him with a hand on his arm, “you’ve got a visitor, hunny, let’s go back inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr Silk: https://cancerousvillain.tumblr.com/post/189741646955/the-doctor-took-me-a-while-to-finish-this-about
> 
> Penny: https://cancerousvillain.tumblr.com/post/189741844890/pretty-penny


	6. Noon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The doctors discuss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the first chapter of the double event! I’ll post chapter 7 a little later in the day. It’s short in comparison to the last chapters but don’t sweat! Next chapter is going to be heavy in both content and length :)

It’s noon.

“The board’s approved it. I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

“I don’t want to _change_ it, it works just fine as it is. What do we need to change it for?”

“Some would say you have questionable methods, Doctor. There’s only so many more places we can put bodies.”

“Dig bigger holes.”

A disapproving glare, answered by an indignant huff. 

“It’s not like we’re still filling them.”

“It’s not a funny joke.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Pipe smoke fills the room. 

“Have you heard anything from the mail?”

“No, still waiting. If it takes any longer, I’ll give the post office a call.”

“See that you do.”

“You’re more excited for this package than I am, Doctor. Maybe it should have been addressed to you.”

“You have the excitement of a paper bag. Someone has to do it for you.”

“How kind of you to say,” sardonic. 

“Of course, Doctor.”

The click of pipe wood against teeth.

“So what of the doctor?”

“Which doctor?”

“The patient.”

“Oh.”

“How is he on the drugs?”

“He’s not taken any.”

A pause.

A questioning arch of the brow. 

“He’s not needed them.”

“Not needed them? Is he a lethargic?”

“He’s been agreeable.”

“An inbred dog is agreeable.” 

A click of the tongue.

“There’s been no resistance thus far. He follows directions and seems eager to comply.”

“That’s….”

Silence fills the room.

“Odd.”

“Mm.”

“Hysteria, isn’t it?”

“That was the initial diagnosis.” 

“Has that changed, then?”

“If things continue as smoothly as they have, yes.”

“Hm……”

A pause.

“None?”

“None.” Prideful.

“How are his sessions?”

“Not as informative as I should like them to be. He’s quite cagey. He has a very well constructed cover, it’s no wonder no one has noticed. It’s quite impressive actually, he sounds like any other intelligent gentleman you’d encounter on the street, if not more so. It’s a shame… I’ve just to pinpoint the cause of the break in his resolve, and then everything should lay itself out for me.”

“Right.”

“But I sense… I _know_ that he’s keeping things from me.” 

He makes a gesture with his hand, fingers pinched together.

“It’s minuscule. There’s a little twitch in his face, this little movement in his cheek when he’s lying.”

“He lies?”

“Lying by omission is still lying.” 

“Hmph.”

“It’s fascinating. The complexities of the human mind. It’s so… Unpredictable.”

Stares at the ceiling.

“He likes wolves.”

A cough through smoke, “So? What, is he seeing wolves?” 

“No, he reacted oddly when I asked.”

“What’s he see then? Cats?”

“Monsters he says. And Moreau.”

A cough.

“Moreau?”

“Yes. He was hesitant to tell me.”

“Do they have a history?”

“No, aside from the fire. You heard about that didn't you?”

“Sure. It was in the paper.”

“...” 

There’s silence again, pipe smoking.

“Has he been through the usual?”

“The hose and ice bath thus far.”

There’s a laugh.

“Why _Silk_ , is that all? Has the good Dr Lanyon scared you?”

“I hardly find the matter humorous, Tyson. Dr Lanyon’s influence can only get him so far. His father is what I’m worried about. There’s hardly a thing his son can do to us now, not after this long, but I’m nervous about what that means for the people that _can_ do something.

“The public doesn’t care what we do here, so long as it keeps the lunatics out of their hair and the morbidly curious entertained.” 

“That’s not my point.”

“Then what’s made you so soft?”

“I’m taking precautions, Doctor. Though, I imagine that’s quite a foreign word to your vocabulary.”

An annoyed grunt.

“Henry Jekyll is not some urchin off the street. He’s got a number of big names in his pocket, names that would notice if he simply disappeared. He’s not a nameless face that can just fade away into the documents and ledgers. I would be more comfortable getting rid of him as quickly as possible if there’s truly nothing the matter.”

“Are you quite well, Silk?” A laugh.

“If he doesn’t need to be here, I don’t want him here. We received 5 calls concerning him in just the first two days we had him. He has a large following, a rather passionate one. If enough winds catch their sails, some people _will_ start noticing. They _will_ start caring, and then _we_ become the bad guys.”

“It’s not a mystery what we do here, Silk, people come here with their children to watch the opioids make men into monkeys. We’re not chaining them to the walls and letting them sit in their own piss. This isn’t the dark ages, Dr Silk. What we’re doing here is _science_. Real, humane science.”

“Bollocks.”

“You said it yourself. The complexities of the human mind can hardly be treated with a bandage and a drop of that disgusting swill Peters passes for medicine. It’s unpredictable. So we have to school it, get it back under control, remind it who is in charge. Those who don’t have the strength to control it come here so that we can reteach them, or do it for them. Our minds are ours to control.”

“It still doesn’t feel like it’s enough anymore. Or maybe it’s too much.”

“Think of it this way; at least we aren’t digging up corpses and sewing them together to make murderous rampaging monsters.”

“I don’t see how that’s quite the same.”

“It’s nearly exactly the same.”

Exasperated, “I just don’t want Jekyll’s sort sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”

“They’re all mad, if you ask me.”

“ _Everyone’s_ mad if they aren’t _you_.”

“Or you.”

Silence. 

“People _like_ Jekyll. They’ll listen to him. _That’s_ what I’m worried about.”

The silence is long.

Smoke drifts up to the ceiling. 

“So you plan to let him go, then?”

“He’s had sleep, rest, distance from his work. He’s been very relaxed. None of the nurses have observed him exhibiting any of the reported symptoms.”

“If I didn’t know any better, Silk, I’d say you were a real doctor.”

“I wish I could say the same, Tyson.”

Laughter. 

Silence again. 

“Of course… Should the patient begin showing any of the signs while under my care…”

A low chuckle.

“Then I will elect to keep him and treat him until he is cured of his illness.”

“You’ve still some sense about you after all.” 

A knock at the door.

“What is it?”

The door opens. 

“Doctor Silk!”

“Hm?”

“It’s the new patient. He’s having a fit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How’s that for a cliff hanger, huh?
> 
> This chapter was interesting to write. Constructing and reconstructing dialogue for two VERY new characters was fun if not challenging. Because of the nature of this fic, and because I don’t believe in truly Straight Forward Evil characters, I’ve been thinking really hard about what kind of person I want Silk to be. He’s very important to the progression of the story for obvious reasons, and while I want him to be the bad guy, I don’t want him to be a Bad Guy if that makes any sense. Nobody is ever that straight forward. 
> 
> If you want to chat about the fic or have any questions, feel free to HMU on tumblr (cancerousvillain) and if you want to see cool art and stuff that I make for the fic or about the fic, I’m on instagram under the same name as my AO3 title.


	7. Rachel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel visits her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I almost posted this in the summary hhhh)
> 
> Ladies and gentleman and those who fall in between, I present to you the longest chapter thus far. 
> 
> For anyone who hasn’t noticed, I’ve been updating this every three or so days. Because of the holidays however, I’ve provided a double update so I can take the next week or two off. 
> 
> Anyway, it’s Rachel time, the best time ever.   
> Lord, this fandom does Rachel so dirty, honestly. I’ve read more than one fic that’s just carelessly sweat her under a rug or straight up mischaracterizes her to get her either out of the picture or make her cruel. I will not stand for this, my girl Rachel deserves absolutely everything, and I hope I did her the justice she deserves. Rachel Pidgley 2k20 folks, give her all the love. She’s really out here for her boy.

Rachel isn’t quite sure _what_ she was expecting from Bethlam Hospital, but this wasn’t particularly it. 

It’s quite nice, at least the hallways they lead her through are. She’s lived long enough to know that first impressions are not everything. She doesn’t imagine the rest of the building looking the same. 

There’s an awful lot of noise. It varies from normal building sounds to worrying to upsetting. If she’s very quiet, she can hear screaming. Perhaps not screaming, it could just be yelling. Whatever it is, it is being spoken at an incredibly loud volume. It’s disheartening and doesn’t do a damn thing to soothe the nervous knots tying themselves in her stomach. 

She keeps herself occupied with the scratch marks on the table. Her fingers slide over the grooves, feeling the divots through her gloves. 

Rachel doesn’t know much, but she’s heard plenty. She’s heard plenty from Mary in the market. That woman is of no shortage of gossip, both trivial and downright unsavory. Mary seems to know news before the news has even happened. Rest assured, the happenstances of _Bedlam Hospital_ have not escaped Mary’s notice and the moment Rachel walked through the doors of the old butcher’s store, Rachel was more informed of it than she realized she ever wanted to be. Needless to say, when she arrived back to the Society, she made an appointment almost immediately. 

She shudders, remembering the things Mary told her. Bugs, rats, and ice flash through her thoughts. Then chains. 

Rachel’s never been to this hospital, or any for that matter. She doesn’t trust any doctors but the ones she works for, and she doesn’t like any know-it-alls but the ones she feeds. She _likes_ them. They’re people. They talk with the aim to inform and they love answering and asking questions. 

The doctors here are nothing like that. The one she’s seen doesn’t smile with his eyes. Doctors like him are usually annoyed when you bother them with questions because you’re beneath them, or speak to you as if you don’t know your head from your rear end. The one she met wasn’t exactly like that, but she’s met enough snooty doctors to know which ones she liked and which ones she didn’t. 

Rachel waits with her cheek in her hand, tapping her fingers along the pocks in the table top. She wonders idly what could have put them there. 

“Rachel?” Her name and the voice that says it has her jumping to her feet.

“Dr Jekyll!” Rachel stops herself from running (she isn’t wearing the shoes for it unless she fancies breaking her ankle). She nearly crushes the man in her arms and the hug he returns is tighter than she’s ever felt it. 

“Rachel it’s wonderful to see you!” Rachel is almost pleased by the happiness in his voice, but her eyes fall on the men blocking the door. Rachel can’t help but feel how sharp his spine is through his shirt. She pulls away, noting he pulls back much slower than she does. His hands linger on her arms, as if reluctant to pull away before they withdraw. “How are you? H-how is everyone?”

“Better seeing you! You left so suddenly I was worried sick!” Rachel angles her head up to meet his eyes. “Honestly, if you walked into the Society you’d think someone’s passed! They’ve done it all up in black. The Lodgers, bless them, are an absolute nightmare. They’re a nightmare on a good day, but now it’s a _sad_ nightmare. Oh Dr Jay, you don’t know miserable until you’ve seen Mr Doddle’s pound cakes. Downright depressing, they are, they’re like sad puppies -literally! He painted little dog faces on them with icing. And you should hear how Luckett and Sinnett go on about you - it’s like you’ve died!” 

“Really?”

“They’re terribly fond of you.”

“How’s Jasper?” Jekyll asks, sitting down at the table. Rachel does the same gingerly, fingers finding the groves again. 

“He’s the real sad puppy,” Rachel says lamely if only to see the weak pull at the corner of his lips. She thinks about the last several days at the Society and is fearful of the last several days for Jekyll _here_. He looks like he’s on his last legs. She almost doesn’t tell him, but she‘d feel awful lying. “He’s been more skittish than usual and he hardly ever leaves his room. I could almost always find him in the kitchen or on the roof, but he hardly ever leaves. He’s taking it a little harder than anybody I think… Well, maybe not as hard as Dr Lanyon, that man has been on the phone for three days straight.”

“Sorry?” Jekyll’s smile looks a little pained. 

“I said Dr Lanyon’s been phoning every lawyer for three days.”

“Ah, well, he’s always been a touch dramatic.” 

“He’s been threatening to call Utterson since Sunday.”

“Utterson? Lord, he’s off his head more than me!” 

“You’re hardly off your head, Dr Jay,” Rachel says a little firmer than she typically might have. Hearing it from him does funny stuff to her chest. Jekyll looks away, smile no longer meeting his eyes. Worry spikes through her heart as she looks at him a little harder. 

Somehow he looks paler, more tired. His usually straight-backed posture seems a little less now, not for lack of trying. There’s a fidget where he sits, and his hands keep fussing over the hair falling into his eyes. There are bruises under his eyes and he keeps tilting his head just a little more to the left than usual. Even his hair looks glamor-less. 

“Are you alright?” Rachel asks, because she has to, every bone in her body can’t sit quietly any longer. Jekyll’s smile becomes forced. He doesn’t answer for several moments, looking between Rachel and the guards at every corner of the room. 

“I…” He hesitates. “I have… Been better.” He gestures. “The sleeping arrangements here aren’t quite the best…”

“Have you told them?” She leans forward just a bit. 

“N-no, not yet. I think I’m still settling in.” Rachel doesn’t believe a word of that. He’s avoiding her eyes, something _very_ irregular of him. 

“Are you sure?” Rachel is thinking of a whole plethora of possibilities and they only serve to make her more nervous. 

“It’s fine, Rachel, really. I’m not going to be here for much longer anyway,” Jekyll rushes to reassure. Rachel should be doing the reassuring, honestly. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t lie to you Rachel.”

Rachel doesn’t know if she believes that. She usually can always trust in Jekyll for his solutions to every and any problem that might arise. He’s quite ingenuitive, in such a way she could never possibly guess. She’s heard some of the lodgers say that if you dropped Jekyll on an island of vicious cannibals, within three days he’d have the population fine dining on animal meats and constructing a steamboat made of palm leaves and coconut hair. He’s a negotiator, a mediator. 

And Rachel’s never quite been convinced when he’s said through his dazzling smiles and peppermint, “I’m fine!”. 

Now he looks as terrible as she’s always suspected he might be underneath it all. She’s looking even more closely than she has before, and she doesn’t like what she sees. 

But she can’t add more to his stress. She can’t fathom pressing him for troubling details, or worse, pressuring him into telling her things. He’s probably already got to deal with plenty of that from the doctors. They probably ask him all sorts of questions, pry into his personal life, into his thoughts. Into his brain. (Rachel banishes the image of a cracked open skull that flashes through her eyes as immediately as it appears. That’s ridiculous, she’ll be having none of that. They’re _professionals_ here, she has to trust that.)

She has to trust Jekyll.

“Well, if that’s all it is, Dr Jay, I suppose-“

Whatever Rachel had intended to say is wholly forgotten in favor of a startled squeal as Jekyll’s hands slam abruptly down around her wrists, effectively pinning her to the table. 

Startled and frankly frightened by this wild change of behavior - never has she ever seen or even considered Jekyll a violent or overly physical person, the man is very particular about other’s personal space and is perhaps the gentlest man she’s ever come to know - she is deeply unsettled and even more fearful for him and the _things_ this place has done to him. Rachel is halfway through a flustered “ _Doctor Jekyll_ ” when she notices his eyes. 

Honestly, how could she or anyone possibly miss it? They’re practically glowing. His complexion is pale enough, made starker by his hair and the red of his eyes, but somehow just with the shade of his eyes and the sudden wide, open expression of his face, the difference is palpable. 

She’d never seen such a shade of green on anyone. 

Except....

Yes she has. 

She’d recognize it, because it’s such a brilliant and unnatural shade, chemical and bright like the stuff that bubbles in Ms. Ito’s beakers and burns holes through metal but not through glass. She knows that color because it’s the same color as…

“Hey!” The guard’s voice makes both of them jump and Jekyll tears his hands off of Rachel like he’s been burned. A guard comes up and grabs Jekyll roughly by the shoulders and wrenches him back into his chair. Rachel winces at the treatment and she almost says something nasty to the guard, but the guard turns to her, “Are you alright miss?”

“Yes, of course, he wasn’t...” Rachel trails off, uneasy with the implications and the way the guard’s hands stay on Jekyll’s shoulders. “He wasn’t hurting me.” 

“Didn’t look to be that way, miss.”

Rachel can’t tear her gaze away from those green eyes. There’s something so intense about them that it sends a shiver down her spine. Holding that gaze is becoming difficult. There’s something nervewrackingly familiar about those eyes that make her think of a wild caged animal itching to be free. 

“Get up.” The guard pulls on Jekyll’s shoulders as if prompting him to lean back into his chair.The movement jerks him roughly and Jekyll’s eyes are red as they've always been. The intense look on his face pales to one of what Rachel can only describe as horror. Jekyll flinches.

“Wait,” he says weakly. The guard freezes. “Five minutes.”

“You’re _done_ , times up.”

“No.” 

“Get up, or I’ll make you.”

“Please-“ is cut off by the guard pulling him out of the chair. 

Jekyll’s body tenses like a cord being pulled and he resists the guard. The guard fights him, trying to force his arms behind his back. Rachel rises from her seat, mind flashing with the image of his green eyes. 

“Get off.” Jekyll’s voice is strained. 

“Ben.” The guard’s voice cuts through loudly and suddenly there’s another one. They both force Jekyll’s arms down, Rachel can see the tension, the strength they’re using against him to force him where they want him and something red seizes her vision. 

“Stop!” She tries, but there are hands on her too now. They don’t grab her, lord knows what she might do if one of these men grabbed her in any capacity, but they’re doing their job in keeping her from getting any closer. 

_Leave him alone!_ she wants to say. 

She watches helplessly behind men three times her size as they take Jekyll away. 

“Jekyll-“

“Let me go!” Jekyll roars and Rachel really _is_ frightened now, by the viciousness of his voice. He writhes and the guards struggle, but they still have their hands on him, keeping his arms pinned and his legs on the floor. 

“Henry!” She cries, surprising herself and him too because he goes limp in the guards’ arms. They’re forced to rapidly adjust to the dead weight or risk dropping him. Rachel can’t see what they’re doing, barred by their arms as she is. She stretches onto her toes, grabbing and pulling as best she can, but they’re dragging him towards the door. 

The last she sees of him are his wide red eyes looking over his shoulder at her with such a desperate fear she’s left feeling cold and helpless with terrible news to deliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like cliff hangers.


	8. Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ş͕̫ͦͫͯ̆́͌ṋ̡̮͙̙͙͎̪̰ͬ̎̏̔͛́̿͡a̴̛̤̲̭̪̗͋̃k̴̜̖̼̻̺̬͎ͤ̚͜e͛͑̈ͦ̈͏̖̹̲͙͙͎͟s̷ͭ̍̌̆̒̓̚̚҉̙̞͉̳̻̳,̴̟͎ͨ͐̉͊ͪ̈̀ ͈̜̤͙͖͂̇ͥ͊̑ͭS̗̦̞̟ͥ̔̇͆̽̓͂ͭn̷̗͖̖̈́͛͋̈́͟a̰͎̯̟̥ͭ͒ͭ̋̓̔K̮̻̀́̎͟ͅẽ̜͙̀̏̒ͪ̋̄̀͢͠s̢̨ͪ͗͌ͮ̿̀ͭ̍҉̱͔,̷̯̗͉̲͔̽̀̀̀ ̧͇͍̝̩͚ͦ͛̆͛͢S̖̲͚͍̳̪̲̜ͮ̓ͦ̋̂ͬ̾̈́͊͟͠͡ ̶̺͙̾̎͗̀n̖̥̦̞̯̲͑ͫ̏Ą̰͖̗̙̪̙͇͈͕ͦk̟̦͓̱̥̜̻̍̏ ͗ͥ̽͏̕ͅͅE̢̬̳͎̱̓̈̕s̢̛̫̼̘̼̓͗͌ͅ,̧̨̮̭̞͕̤͔͑ͯͦ̂̊̃ͤ ̷̗̤̞̹̳͓͙̗͇̃͆̓̓ͤ̒͑͊̈͟S̸̙̼͎͍̳̮͉͚͆ ̶̸͉̭̞͎͙̝̂̃̕n̴̷̹̞͇̻̿͑ͮ̃̀ ̷̶̻̘̜ͭͤȀ̛͍̞̭̬̄̿̂͆ ͔̰̭̮̣͖ͪͥ̽͟͠k̶͍̰̱͙̲͇̫̻̯̈́ͫ͌ͭ́ ͈̱̺͎̭̫̼̝͗͑͑Ė̶̛̞̟͙̼̘͕͎̏ ̨͈͕̠̘ͦ́͟ͅS͓̪̻ͤ̽̐̾͛̂͜

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not as long as the last one but, “brevity is the soul of wit” as the Archive always stays. It’s time to finally put those warnings to good use, huh?
> 
> This is my favorite chapter so far.
> 
> Written to what I’ve come to recognize as the Walls and Holes theme song:  
> [Devil’s Trill Sonata](https://youtu.be/z7rxl5KsPjs)
> 
> **CHAPTER WARNINGS: Graphic gore, body horror, graphic hallucinations**

Fire explodes from around Henry’s feet, spilling across the floor like a flood of brilliant glowing water that cracks and bursts up the walls in hot licking froths. It engulfs the hallway, curling along the ceiling in stroking gusts of destruction. The walls either scorch away like fine parchment to a candle or pop and blacken, turning to molten stone and liquid fire. The plaster explodes, the glass windows shatter and the patients disintegrate in ashes, scattered through the air and into Henry’s mouth and nose. The nurses and doctors and guards deform into unidentifiable shapes of flesh and bone that crack and groan and squelch, ooze body yellow and clear oils and fluids through the folded skin and welts. There is nothing but the drag of tiles along the tops of his feet, so cold they burn, rough hands on his body, and bright bright light consuming his vision. 

**‘SHE WAS RIGHT THERE!** ’

**‘SHE WAS RIGHT THERE!** ’

Hyde’s voice fills the halls and Henry’s head, shaking like an earthquake. Fear is hot in his veins. The walls beneath the flames crack and tremble, bricks fall and the ceiling caves. Stones rain down on the monsters and tortured visions, squashing them in cooked sprays of blood and meat. The stench of burnt flesh stings his nostrils, the smoke stings his eyes.

‘ **SHE WAS RIGHT FUCKING THERE YOU COULD HAVE TOLD HER EVERYTHING!** ’

Voice trembling with a fear he’s never known, “N-no I-“

The hands on his arms, keeping them locked behind him, turn hot like coals and when he looks, their faces are red and gnarled, horrifically contorted and snarling like demons dragging souls to hell. They drool and growl, leering at him. Henry tries to tear out of their grip but they don’t let go. Their long black glistening claws dig into his flesh, drawing blood and it comes out  _ black _ . 

Why is it black? Why is it black why does it burn!?

The red demons smile at him, hissing acid spit through their yellowed dagger teeth. The laugh at him as the acid eats away at his flesh. They laugh loud and full-bellied with their jaws still closed and fixed in their hideous grins. Their snouts drip with hungry saliva and their tongues slip through their teeth like liquid meat, drawing wet and slimy across Henry’s face and over his neck. He feels them over his jaw, his neck, dipping below the collar of his shirt and across the taut skin of his collarbone and the clammy expanse of his chest beneath his shirt. 

One slips like a snake into his mouth, crawling down his throat. It’s salty and rotten like bad meat, thick and muscular like an organ. He feels it squirm and slide down his gullet like corded muscle, stopping his breath and forcing his eyes to roll back into his skull. Henry can feel every inch of it’s reptilian head as its protruding eyes and flicking tongue drag along the walls of his esophagus. His body convulses, disgust and terror locking his limbs. The demon bites the end of its snake tongue off and it disappears into his body, its tail drawing along the back of his tongue until it too is gone down his throat, into his stomach where he still feels it curling in his guts, and the only relief is that he can breathe again. 

Panting harshly and frantically, he tries to vomit, get it  _ out of him  _ but  _ nothing comes up _ . 

He shakes and cries and they take him deeper, deeper into the tunnel and Henry can’t tell the difference between the floor from the ceiling as they drag him horizontal along the wall, the ceiling, through razor sharp crags of hot brimstone and fire.

The inferno engulfing the building darkens, from gold, to orange, to red and that’s all Henry can see now, it red, it’s all red and  _ the screaming- _

“Stop!” Henry begs, his own voice drowned out, voice wrecked and saliva and snake slime dripping from his mouth. He feels the snake in his stomach curl and uncurl. The roar of the fire and the screams of the damned deafen him. The inside of his head is like the street that hard carriage wheels and bone-breaking horses’ hooves stomp and crack over. The pain is splitting and his moans are lost to the roar of the flames. “ _ Please _ !”

‘ **SHE COULD HAVE HELPED! THAT’S WHAT SHE DOES, SHE CAME HERE FOR YOU AND ALL YOU WANTED TO TALK ABOUT WERE THE LODGERS!** ’

“ _ Please! Stop! Kill me _ !” Henry sobs, cooking in his own skin. Sweat drips off of him like he’s been dunked in water and all he can do is writhe as he flesh slips off his bones. He feels a horrible stretch in his stomach and he looks down, sees the coils of the snake writhing within his stomach and his body is a livewire of cold hot fear.

‘ **IF I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER I’D SAY YOU** **_LIKED_ ** **BEING HERE! HENRY JEKYLL, FINALLY IN THE HELL HE BELONGS IN!** ’

“NO!” Henry screams. 

From the crumbled scorching ground, furled in flames, horrors rise, burning in agony in the flames. They scream and flail and they reach out beseechingly as the red demons drag Henry closer and closer to the black abyss at the end of the tunnel. The poor wretches in the flames throw themselves into the walls and fires, begging for death, for the end, for forgiveness, for god. They pull on their white hot chains and fight against their bindings and straight jackets, vomit blood and magma through their leather and steel muzzles. Henry’s wading through it, up to his knees, getting higher. 

Henry feels his breath coming through his chest and it burns and hurts like he’s being crushed, like something is being pressed into his ribs and pulling his body tight like a drawstring. His heart is pounding wildly against the cage of his ribs, like it’s trying to get out of his body and run away or burn in the liquid inferno rising to his hips, scorching away flesh, muscle bone organs.

It boils his stomach to a frothy bubbling film that floats atop the magma like sea foam until even that burns away into a stinging smoke. 

Henry seizes. 

_ Hyde’s voice comes like a whisper in his ear, vicious and fanged, biting into his neck and tearing his throat out with tender fury and Henry has never hated being alive more than right now.  _

‘ **YOU LIKE BEING CARTED AROUND LIKE A LABRAT!?** ’

_ Henry screams as the fire scorches his spine and neck like raking claws.  _

‘ **SCREAM, MAYBE SHE’LL HEAR YOU!** ’

_ The magma flows thick and choking down his throat, clogging his lungs, filling his nose, stomach, ears- _

‘ **YOU USELESS WASTE OF SPACE!** ’

_ Henry’s drowning, he’s drowning, burning- _

‘ **YOUR SOUL IS ROTTEN!** ’

Hyde roars and the air is black with his rage, a vortex and it’s sucking all of the light in. The fire gets pulled into the abyss, the walls tearing to pieces.

His eyes melt out of his skull, it’s  _ nothing but black- _

_ He’s dying, he’s dying, he can’t breathe he’s drowning he’s dying he’s dying he’s dying he’s dying he’sdyinghe’sdyinghe’sdyingdyingdyingdying- _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the formatting got lost, this chapter looked a lot cooler before I pasted it in. Tried to use Rich Text and everything. Le sigh.


	9. Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah the first chapter of the new year. It’s 2020 alright. 
> 
> I’m slowing down the posting schedule for this, I’ve been trying to get all my Frozen AU garage out of my system (those following any of my major social media’s will know what I mean). 
> 
> ANYWAY! So I’d just like to clear some things up for any of those who don’t follow my tumblr. I had someone making worrying assumptions about the nature of Walls and Holes, someone described it as “torture porn” and accused me of demonizing mental illness in favor of being “historically accurate”. I address this problem [here](https://cancerousvillain.tumblr.com/post/189755684650/i-apologize-for-being-crass-but-what-im-trying-to) and [here](https://cancerousvillain.tumblr.com/post/189756594465/i-think-its-very-not-swag-money-of-you-to). 
> 
> I honestly was just really unsettled that this fic might be misconstrued? Because mental health and mental illness is real lmao and also something Everyone faces. It is NOT my intention to demonize mental illnesses of any kind. 
> 
> In my opinion, anyone upset by this fic for any reason other than from just being invested in the plot, you can simply not read it and blacklist it for you own reasons. Don’t make it anyone else’s problem, because I’ve said my part, I’ve defended myself, and there are Worse Things that have been written than this and they’re not getting fire. My story is to invoke sympathy and to educate! I write because it’s fun and therapeutic. Unless its constructive criticism or just a friendly comment, plz mind ur biz. Or put it up with the [complaint department](https://images.app.goo.gl/PA56EVeRVYkB1DJDA).
> 
> **Chapter Warnings: Use of drugs, implied non-consensual drug use (sort of but just to be safe)**

Henry wakes up face down on the floor and with his head feeling like it’s been stuffed with glue and cotton. He feels like he’s moving through thick cold syrup, his arms and legs uncoordinated. He moans as a terrible pain laces through his skull to the base of his neck. He fumbles a hand up to it, running his fingers over a spot of stinging, aching flesh. His bones creak and his muscles shake under his weight when he tries to move them, and he opts suddenly to stay right where he is. 

He’s not sure how long he stays on the floor for, but it’s enough for him to notice he’s lying in his own drool as he fades in and out of coherent thought. 

He can’t remember. 

After a few moments or hours his skull begins to throb. Like someone’s hitting a drum, only his head is inside the drum and all around him he can feel the vibration. It’s awful, and he can’t think. Coherent thought is impossible, non-existent. There’s a special sort of panic he’s feeling that’s lethargic and helpless because he can’t move, he can’t feel anything below his neck, but he sees it moving. 

He feels like he’s looking through a distorted telescope, his vision tunneled but not fixed on anything, just moving, moving, moving and his head is throbbing, throbbing, _throbbing_. 

At some point he notices he’s lying in a bed because the blood is circulating in the previously numb side of his face and there’s pins and needles everywhere. 

He stares at the cracked ceiling for seconds or days. 

He falls asleep.

When he wakes up again, it’s with a roaring headache. This at least is familiar. He finds a vague comfort in the sensation of his own brain pressing angrily into his skull, reassuring him that his head -and the rest of him- are all present this time around. 

The lights are off, or it’s dark out, he can’t really tell. The silence isn’t loud but it is obvious. It’s a slow yet stirring quiet, the kind often associated with hospitals (real hospitals). He opens his eyes very slowly, eyelids as heavy as weights. He’s lying quite flat on his back now, but at least he’s got a pillow. The position he’s in has him staring directly up at the same cracked ceiling he fell asleep to. He counts the cracks and water stains before remembering that he’s awake. 

His neck hurts, a sharp sore spot on the right side of his neck. He raises a hand to touch it but finds he can’t. He tries the other. 

“Henry.”

His name disturbs the still surface of the silence and Henry snaps his head around to find Silk standing beside his bed. Henry was almost sure he hadn’t been there a moment before. He looks different; or perhaps that’s just Henry’s head still swimming. His usually neat hair looks ever so slightly disheveled, and he’s wearing a mask that’s pulled down under his chin. Otherwise, he looks like he always does, eyes lidded, lips thinned, clipboard in hand. Consistent, composed. Silk tilts his head, grabbing Henry’s attention. Henry looks him up and down again, trying to assess his body language but his mind is still too sluggish to really tell anything. He puts off answering for a moment longer, trying unsuccessfully to squint into the dark. “How are you feeling?”

Henry reluctantly looks back at Dr Silk and with a surprisingly raspy voice says, “Terrible.”

It comes out slightly slurred. Tension returns to Henry. He looks down the length of his body, shifting his legs against the buckled leather straps. Dread, sluggish and inevitable, sits heavy in his painfully empty stomach. He tries to sit up. He can’t. 

“Yes, that’d be the chloral hydrate. I’m told it makes things feel fuzzy, but your head should clear up in a few minutes.” 

Chloral hydrate? They drugged him? Why did they drug him? 

“Why am I tied down?” He asks, voice cracking.

“We had to restrain you,” Silk takes a seat. “What’s the last thing you remember?” 

Henry wracks his brain, trying to remember. His fists clench, muscles straining beneath the leather straps. He looks back up at the ceiling, searching his fuzzy memory. Everything seems to be running much slower and a spike of frustration pierces through the haze. 

He remembers Rachel. He remembers how happy he was to see her and how _worried_ she looked when she’d seen him. The thought brings back the sadness he’d felt before. Oh, he hated seeing her that way. She’s already so busy, he hates the idea of burdening her more. Guilt settles familiarly in his bones. He’s so tired of guilt, growing and rotting in his chest like an ugly weed. He’s so sick of it and yet…

And yet, it’s all he has isn’t it? There’s nothing else in his empty chest. 

“Rachel,” he says. Silk nods, expression encouraging and as calm as it always is. Henry doesn’t know why that worries him. 

“Anything else?”

He tries to remember more. It gets hazier around their conversation. He doesn’t remember what they talked about. He feels like Utterson might have been mentioned but he can’t imagine why. Maybe it had been brought up when he asked, _if_ he asked. He honestly isn’t sure. His mind, his brain, is being so uncooperative, more uncooperative than it’s ever been. He can’t even piece together what drew their discussion from-

The room stills.

His blood is cold where it starts to circulate faster through his veins. 

“A nightmare.” He licks his dry lips. He meets Silk’s eyes, trying to quell the panic that surges through his gut. “Why am I tied down?” 

Dr Silk writes on his clipboard. The scratch of his pen fills the room. It takes him so long to answer that Henry’s about to ask again when Silk finally looks up. 

His expression is unreadable. 

“Can you tell me about the nightmare?”

“Tell me why I’m tied down first.” 

Dr Silk’s lips thin. 

“You were having a fit. Flailing, shaking. We had to tie you down so we could administer a sedative so you could sleep. You were… You seemed frightened. You were trembling and breathing very quickly, I feared the worst. I’d like to know why you were so frightened.”

Henry licks his dry lips again. Why are they so dry? He feels like he can still taste the metallic tang of blood on his lips. It makes the back of his jaw jump, muscles in his neck tensing and heat throbbing up into his skull. He feels his own tongue against his skin, thinking hauntingly of the texture of veiny muscle and meat moving over his body and down his throat. How it was slimy and firm, pushing against the taut walls of his body, invading and slithering and stretching and filling-

“Come back to me, Henry.” Dr Silk has his head cocked in that way he does when Henry does something he finds interesting. Henry’s spent the last five days figuring out what those things are so he can make sure not to do them. Right now, though, Henry doesn’t think he needs to guess. 

He stops licking his lips. 

Henry’s so wrapped up in the stillness of his own mind, rare and unattainable as that so often is. He forgets that he doesn’t really have a choice. No matter what he does, he’s going to have to tell him anyway. 

But he doesn’t want to talk about it. Even with everything factored in, Jekyll still can’t bring himself to speak. He can barely remember it. All he has are the vivid textures, and the awful feeling in his stomach, like an over stretched leather bag. He feels like leather right now. Tight across the skin, dry, brainless, and stretched thin. 

He fidgets (as has become frequent of him these past days), and he’s reminded again of the leather straps over his wrists. 

“Henry?” Dr Silk tries again. 

There had been so much red. Hot, red, and black. His skin melting off. 

Henry swallows and doesn’t answer. 

Silk sighs, “Okay.” 

He uncrosses his legs and rises from his chair. Henry watches him leave. 

It’s quiet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait. Tags are updating more and more. Please heed warnings and take care of yourself. 
> 
> This is the short chapter before The Chapter. 
> 
> :)


	10. Sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Restless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most intense chapter written so far. It is also my favorite, right beside Snake. 
> 
> A lot happens in this chapter, it is the longest I’ve written so far. 
> 
> Please take care of yourselves! I’m going to put chapter warnings at the bottom of the chapter to avoid spoilers. Let me know if you prefer chapter warnings at the top!
> 
> Additionally: Chapters are going to be coming a lot slower, so please be patient!

_Miss Walters was a gentle woman. She never grabbed him too roughly. Instead she puts a hand on his arm and make gentle suggestions that, while phrased as such, he knows enough aren’t quite optional, but her sweet voice and shy politeness makes it easier. In all of the research (very little) that he’s done in terms of science concerning the human mind, he supposes some theories are right. He finds the nurses in their cool gray uniforms far less unsettling than the guards in their clean white coats, gloves on some, aprons on others (what do they need those for?). The nurses, or at least the ones he’s met, might speak in tones unfitting of a man of his age, but he prefers that to being manhandled from one location to another like a doll._

_Miss Walters had such a charming air about her. He suspects she might have been new, she didn’t have the serious jaded look of the other nurses that comes with managing and running a hospital for the insane._

_He knows she read Dickens, he saw her with a book before an older nurse scolded her. She’d tucked it into her apron and he’d brought it up while she’d walked him back to his room. The conversation was nice, she’d been genuinely surprised, like she either thought he had no clue who Dickens was, or that he was capable of intelligent conversation. A little insulting, many of the patients were perfectly capable of normal conversations, and even more were as well if you knew how to talk to them._

_She was young and often had a carefully schooled expression, but still readable, as though she’d taught herself to be serious and professional despite her emotions. She was a bleeding heart, like himself. The care she took with the other patients was one he might have found admirable, one he didn’t see among most of the other nurses and guards. He liked to think that she really did honestly care about the patients and what they did here; that they were people and that perhaps there was hope for them._

_She had a nice voice, too. Some might not put a lot of stock into things as trivial as the sound of someone’s voice (Henry does. He thinks about the timbre of Robert’s voice and the jaunty sing song of Rachel’s and the subdued excitement of Jasper’s), but it might just be one of the most important qualities a person could have. If you have a high nasally voice that sounds like you’re speaking from the middle of your forehead and up through your ass, no one’s going to take you seriously. But having a gentle, hushed, persuasive octave that’s never too loud but just enough to disrupt the noise of his mind as she takes him somewhere else… It soothes the soul, perhaps. Especially the casual way she calls him “hunny” and everyone else “love” or “sweetie”. If it isn’t coming from a parent or lover, terms like that can be condescending and rake lines up Henry’s spine, but not when she does it. Never when she does it for some reason._

_She really was lovely._

_When Henry thinks of her now, he falls ill with guilt._

* * *

Penny has a special quality about her that somehow prevents Jekyll from ever becoming annoyed with her. However, on this terrible morning, after being hosed for an hour and left in his dripping clothes, shaking over breakfast, exhausted from another sleepless night strapped into bed, it’s a very near thing. 

He can’t stop rubbing his wrists, running his fingers over the bruised and raw skin. He couldn’t sleep last night. 

Penny’s finger pokes his neck, right over the sore spot and he jumps so sharply in his seat that Penny jumps a little too, looking at him with wide surprised eyes. 

“They got’cha di’n’t they?” She asks with that same factual air. She moves to poke the injection spot again and he makes the effort to swat her hand away. 

“Stop touching it.” 

She pulls her hand away, eyes still fixed on it and a cat comes to Henry’s mind. She goes back to carving shapes into her porridge, eyes unmoving. Jekyll tries to do the same, lips pressed together. His bare ankles rub together slowly, feeling out the battered skin. He wonders if there will be bruises on his stomach too. 

“Why’d they stick you? Is that why y’weren’t at dinner?” Henry sighs, running a hand through his hair as he tries to calm himself. He shouldn’t be so cross with her, she hasn’t done anything. He does not answer her. 

She doesn’t insist, strangely enough. She gets invested in playing with her food rather than eating it again, which isn’t so strange. Henry takes this semblance of privacy to press his forehead to the cool surface of the table, fingers locking behind the back of his head. 

He’s had a headache every night since Silk started administering a sleep aid. Shortly after the first night strapped to the bed, the routine changed, and Silk’s sessions got longer. Now Silk had a guard stand by the door during their sessions and the questions he asked were getting stranger. Henry still couldn’t bring himself to describe the nightmare (if it can be called that), and he knows it’s a source of frustration for Silk. Thinking about it even three days after makes him sick to his stomach and the smell of the hospital meal makes it worse. He shoves his bowl away, thinks of something else.

Anything else.

 _Anything._

There must be something. 

“-Silk’s got his work cut out for him this time around.” That should do fine. Henry locks onto the conversation, turning his head and lowering his arm in order to hear better. 

“Is that so?” Says the nurse. It’s not Walters, it’s the one with the scar on her nose. It’s unflattering, only because Henry doesn’t like her very much. Her voice is quite dissimilar, something aloof and indifferent if not slightly nasty. 

“Yeh, new patient and what not.” The guard sniffs. “He’s got more than Tyson.”

“Tyson and Silk aren’t the only doctors that work here.” 

“Sure they aren’t, but none of them is as creepy as them right? And they’re in charge.”

“What gave that away? The plaque on the front of the building that’s got their names on it, or their signature on your paycheck?”

“Why’ve you got to be such a bitch all the time?” The guard sighs, exasperated. I’m just tryin’ to ‘ave a conversation.” 

“Then skip the idle chit chat and tell me the real gossip.”

“Alright, alright,” the guard concedes. “The otha day, me and Ben ‘ad to fight a patient off a visitor.”

“Which one? Was it Smith?”

“Nah no. See, he’s right there a’tually. Next to Penny.”

Funny, that they should be talking about him. 

Henry drops his arms fully, pillowing his head as he looks at the idle staff just a few feet behind him. The guard is leaning against the wall, his attention on the nurse with the scarred nose, arms crossed. On the other side of the nurse is Walters, reading like she isn’t supposed to. The guard in question is a face Henry is familiar with. He’s seen him pushing patients that walk too slow or yelling at them when they get in the way. Henry figured he was rude, he just didn’t think he was an ass.

“The doctor?” The nurse looks up from where she’s picking her nails. 

“So he is a doctor. I wasn’t sure.”

“Yeah some big shot. Probably got too much powder up his nose and lost his marbles. Rich people.” 

“That explains it. He’s off his rocker, that one.”

“They all are, Stu.” She looks peeved, as if tired of repeating the same thing multiple times over. 

“Yeah, but he’s something else. Sorta like the guys downstairs, y’know? Nah, you wouldn’t, you work upstairs don’t’cha. Real shame about him though, he’s not bad to look at.”

Henry’s thoughts stall. 

What?

“You’re disgusting.” 

“C’mon. Thrashing as much as he was, had to really put my back into it, felt every bit of him. How do those rich prats stay so skinny? They’re always eating.” 

“They make themselves vomit a bunch. And tobacco. Kills your appetite.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh... Anyway, what I was saying; he jumped on ‘er, and she screamed-“

“Hold on, ‘she’?” The nurse interrupts. 

“Yeah, was this sweet thing, dark hair, a beauty mark…”

“‘A patient jumping on a lady’”, The nurse snorts, her expression nasty. “Board’ll have a field day with that one.”

“Right, so she screamed real loud, I stormed over, grabbed ‘im and pulled him out of the bench. He’s a lot stronger than he looks. Had to get Ben-“

“You had to get Ben? He’s all bone.”

“That’s what I thought! I almost couldn’t believe it, but I really _did_ need help. He’s got demons I’ll tell you, it was like wrangling a bull. The whole way out of the room he was thrashing like you’d never seen, then suddenly he just goes limp. I think, oh this is it, he’s done. But the moment we get out in the hall, he loses it! He’s possessed, I tell you.”

“Acute mania, wasn’t it? Silk said it was hysteria but now he thinks he’s a full blown lunatic. Really, I think the doctor needs to pick a reason to keep him here and quit changing his mind.”

Henry feels his teeth grinding and he forces himself to relax his jaw.

“Not _mania_. It’s gotta be something else…”

Finally it falls quiet between the two. Henry sits up. 

It’s just idle gossip. They don’t know anything. He didn’t _jump_ on Rachel. Hyde’s many things, but Jekyll doesn’t believe Hyde would ever deliberately hurt Rachel. 

At least he thinks he wouldn’t. 

‘ _Don’t_ presume _to know me_.’

Henry groans down at the fuzzy blonde reflection on the metal table. He pulls his bowl back on top of it. 

“That’s Stuart. ” Penny inserts herself once more, her eyes fixed elsewhere but her body turned very intentionally to him. Her bowl is conspicuously empty. “That’s his last name, I don’t know his first name. He’s mean, he pushes the old lady and steals the keys.”

Henry lifts his head, straightening his shoulders when he notices he’s slouching again, “Keys to what?”

“The rooms,” is all she says. Henry doesn’t know what that means until he thinks about that a little longer. His skin crawls at the implication. 

“Whose rooms?” He asks, because suddenly it’s imperative that he knows. He’s aware of the horrible things they do here. He’s been put through some of them, and he knows there’s more waiting behind closed doors. He knows, he’s aware. He’s heard things from the patients that cry and desperately grab nurses, that mumble and look away when he gets too close or if he speaks to them at all. He’s not heard anything, not from Penny, but he’s seen implications that he might have been trying to convince himself weren’t there. But he knows that’s not the case. He honestly shouldn’t have expected any different. But he’d assumed at least that… that at least there wouldn’t be… Does Silk know? 

Penny goes eerily still, staring at… Nothing, Henry finds when he turns to look. He turns back to her and she’s scraping the sides of her very empty bowl. Henry is a little upset by this. 

Over his shoulder, he hears the nurse start up the conversation again. He tries Penny a few more times before he bothers to listen in again. 

“-dunno what you’re on about,” spoken with a defensive tone.

“Don’t think I don’t know. We’ve worked together for five years. I know you-“

“No you don’t. You didn’t know my name for two of those five and you’ve only known my favorite color for one.”

“Christ, you and your ‘standards’...”

“Finish or g _et lost, Stu_.”

“I’ve said all there is. ‘Less you want me to go on about his figure-“

“Watch it - people might mistake your head for your dick.”

Henry feels the guard’s eyes on him, ears burning. He fixes his eyes on his plate. Sometimes it was better to leave it be. 

“Who’s to say it ain’t already lookin’ that way?”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Alright, what do you want me to say? Shall I go back to the broad?”

“Give you an inch and you take a mile…”

“Sweet thing she was. Course, he scared the poor bitch stiff so she was stumbling all shaken up,” The guard says and Henry disregards his previous thought. He may be a gentleman, but there are few things he can tolerate, and sitting idly by while someone calls his day manager a bitch is not one of them. . 

Jekyll’s always liked to consider himself completely and totally in control of his emotions, anger first and foremost. Anger is an interesting emotion because it whites out all other existing feelings and rational thoughts if you’ve not taught yourself better. He’s not prone to feeling it often (at least not much these days recently or earlier), he has a very tight reign on his emotions that he allows little slack for. And yet… 

And yet: In the past week or so alone, Henry has been chained to a wall, strapped to a bed, drugged on several occasions in just two days, forced into ice cold baths, talked to like a child, he has sores and bruises all over his body, and headaches, and he’s slept worse here than he ever has before. It’s barely been a week and Henry can’t stand another minute of it the more time that goes by. Early release was within his grasp and Hyde _ruined_ it. And now a guard, not 8 feet behind him, is objectifying him, _a patient_ and calling his day manager, his _friend_ , rude names. 

Never before this moment, sitting at a long table packed with swaying and mumbling troubled and tortured individuals, stripped of even shoes and a dry pair of clothes, shivering, partly deaf in one ear, and nursing a hangover from a ‘sleep aid’, Henry Jekyll has never felt so stripped of his dignity and humanity. 

So, yes, Jekyll finds himself very, very angry. 

He sends the wickedest glare he can manage over his shoulder at the guard, channeling all the offense he has on Rachel’s behalf. He is a gentleman of every caliber, at the very least in this regard. No man worth his salt should be going around calling anyone names. 

And even if he wasn’t, not a soul alive is allowed to talk about Rachel in that way while he’s in the room, least of all in front of his face. 

The guard’s expression falls when it meets Henry’s. There’s a satisfaction Henry would never confess to feeling that comes with putting people -particularly the rude ones- back where they belong. The dark part of Henry’s soul that Hyde inhabits, that Hyde _is_ , knows the power he has ( ~~had~~ ) over people. At one point, Henry could say that he could smile and talk his way out of an arrest. He’s done it before. He’d be able to do it again ~~not this time~~.

No human is of less or more value. Henry doesn’t like putting people down, but he’s making an exception, and the red in his vision fades when the guard seems to sober up. 

“Heard me talkin’ about you, love?” The guard says instead of shutting up. Henry doesn’t know how to respond to that so he doesn’t, feeling oddly like the rug’s been pulled out from underneath him. That wasn’t what he was expecting and frankly it makes him more uncomfortable than he was before. 

He doesn’t like the look on the guard’s face, unfriendly and….

‘ _Dangerous._ ’

_Yes that’s the word._

Henry doesn’t say anything, he can’t. He’s too nervous to move, he doesn’t- Anything he does could be taken incorrectly, as a response or- or- encouragement or provocation- he can’t think of anything, usually he can but his brain is so _fucking sluggish_ he can’t _think of anything_ -

The guard pushes off the wall. 

“Stu.” The nurse warns with really no warning in her voice at all. She remains as flat as ever even as the guard stands to his full height and starts making his way over. 

Alarms go off in his head, Jekyll unable to look at him anymore. He shies away from his shadow and finds his eyes unfortunately fixed on the guard’s shoes. 

“What are you lookin’ at?” Henry jumps when the guard’s hand touches his face. The guard pushes his head back, forcing him to look at him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” 

Henry’s pulse thrums in his neck, blood rushing in his ears. He feels his face grow hot under the guard’s hands and he tries, weakly, to pull out of the guard’s hand. 

“No, I ain’t finished with you, you’ve got my attention now.” The guard’s position shifts, just enough to force Henry to crane his neck back further and lean into the table or risk straining his already aching neck. The guard’s face is so close now Henry feels his breath on his face. “What ‘ave you got to say then, hm?”

‘ _Tell him he’s a gutter rat that lives to eat the shit off my shoes._ ’

“Let go…” Henry starts. He’s cut off by a rough movement of the guard’s hand.

“What was that? Say it again,” The guard smirks, voice loud. “Or do you not know how to talk anymore?”

The room around them has gone abnormally quiet. That might just be from how loudly his heart is beating, blocking everything out. He can’t see much as it is, the guard’s five o’clock shadow filling most of his line of vision. He feels Penny’s arm against his own, unmoving. He can visualize the other patients at the table keeping their heads down or watching with rapt ignorant interest. 

“Let go,” Henry says again, pained. He doesn’t. 

“Let go? Is that what you said?”

Henry’s face ignites, skin crawling with embarrassment, “Yes.”

“What d’you say?” The guard’s voice drips with amusement and condescension. It stings Henry’s already damaged pride and he has never so badly wanted to take back his own words. When Henry doesn’t answer, the guard shakes his head roughly, teeth bared as he says, “Anyone home in there? It’s all that cold water, must’ve washed all the brain you got left out your ears. Not so tough now, huh? Where’d your balls go? Did they freeze like your brain too?”

The nurse, hidden behind the bulk of the guard, makes a derisive sound, one that probably barely changed the expression of her face, forced out through her nose and teeth. 

“Well, you don’t ‘afta worry about that, love,” The guard’s smile loses its edge, tone nonchalant and playful, like a man sharing an amusing joke with a friend.  
“I’ve got plenty of balls for the both of us, I’m sure we could share.” 

Henry spits in his face. 

If anything, Henry can commend them for their efficiency from getting him from the cafeteria to the showers. 

It’s a task to get his shirt off because while Henry’s not exactly struggling, he’s not making it easy for them either. Nothing good ever comes of something like that, and he’s more nervous than ever because they don’t bother to take his clothes off for the hose _or_ the bath. 

There’s the sound of running water hitting one of the ceramic sink bowls and when he looks over his shoulder, he finds the basin to be quite abnormally large. It’s long and shallow and he doesn’t know what it could possibly be used for until they start to drag him towards it. 

He lets them shove him up against the side of it, kick his feet apart, and they grip his arms behind his back so tightly that his muscles ache. His mind reels with anxiety as the guards situate themselves behind him. He, no they can’t be doing what he thinks their doing, he hasn’t done anything, all he did was defend himself, why would they-  
He’s wrought with panic that he forgets to brace himself so when they shove him in he’s unprepared and ice water bombards his throat. 

The water is so cold (it’s always cold) that it steals the air from his lungs almost instantly. The lack of air scares him into inhaling the freezing water and it goes down like a mouthful of knives. His body immediately tries to expel it, sucking more water in until Henry’s fighting against the hands keeping him down. There’s no thought as they keep him under, fighting against his jerking shoulders. He’s not thinking, it’s just the initial blinding white noise of shock and panic.

It doesn’t last too long, it’s really only a few seconds. They let him up and the only thing that comes out is water. 

Water, water, always water. It comes out of his nose and he hacks it out of his lungs. It takes him several seconds to realize over the roar of the blood in his ears that that rasping gasping sound is him, breathing frantically through his stuttering lungs. He has only seconds to take a bubbling inhale before he’s pushed back under. 

He’s a more prepared this time but somehow it’s worse. He’s allowed the terrible privilege of coherent thought in place of that white fear before. Now he can properly build up that panic. His lungs are burning immediately, tight and excruciatingly painful like a balloon all the air was sucked out of, all unrelenting pressure. Now he can _really_ think about the fact that he can’t breathe, that this is what drowning is, what they feel before they die. This time his whole body works to get his head back above water. He feels the resistance of the guards’ arms keeping him firmly below the surface, and his brain starts to go wild with that primitive instinct to survive.

… And they pull him back up. 

He’s coughing again, water flowing from every hole in his face, choking on his own throat and the torrent coming up through it from the wrong tube. He takes in huge gulping breaths, spots dancing across his vision as blessed oxygen rushes into his aching lungs. He’s never been so grateful for something as simple and so devastatingly important as _air_.

And they shove him back in. 

He screams through the water, bubbles up his nose and down the back of his throat. It swamps his senses, like ice hot metal tearing into his skin. In the silent black abyss, Henry faces mortality.

This is drowning. This really is drowning, isn’t it? They want to kill him, don’t they? They’re going to drown him and do away with his body like they did countless others, forgotten because no one wanted them, no one loved them. He’s going to die and everything he’s fought for, worked for, killed himself for will be for nothing. All those sleepless nights, the people he’s ruined himself to impress for their interest, for their _money_. God, the things he’s done for people’s money. There’s truth to what Frankenstein said, after all. He’s every bit an industrialist slut. No, a _whore_. An industrialist whore that’s sold his body, his identity- but it was all for the Society. It was never for just himself, it was for all of _them_ , the Lodgers, Rachel who has no where else to go because the Society is as much her life as it is Henry’s, for _science_ , Henry’s reason to live and to fight for discovery and exploration. That has to make it better. So why doesn’t he feel better? He’s missed the exhibition, not that any of the Lodgers were doing it anymore _anyway_. Why does it feel like everything he’s done is for nothing? What little of himself he still has is _all_ he has now. He’s auctioned off any sense of self he used to have to keep the society afloat, for nothing, and all he’s done with what he has left is given it to Hyde to crush under his heel and smear it until its too thin to salvage. There’s nothing here for him anymore because he’s squandered it. 

And it’s so _unfair_.

They pull him up, he’s gasping in wet choking sobs, heart thrashing against his chest, crawling up his throat, through his mouth. He feels his pulse in his neck, his ears, his throat. It hurts, his own heart beat, the organ in his chest that resides between life and death _hurts_ as it works so hard to keep him alive.

Does he even deserve it anymore?

Back in. 

He goes back under and it floods him again, his brain, his stomach. He tries to hold his breath longer but it's so cold and the primal need to survive, adrenaline like lightning in his veins.

It’s so unfair, he thinks. It’s worlds of unfair. He’d grown up all his life knowing that the world was unfair and that it hated anything that didn’t fit into its box. He’d always known that, but it had always been that the only way around it was hard work. Hard work and drive. Didn’t he have that? Didn’t he have drive, didn’t he work hard? Wasn’t he killing himself everyday, ripping out his hair, dropping everything he had, holding onto the bare minimum, the scant little he had left, so that he could achieve that? What did he _have_ anymore? What is it worth? At some point he must have made a mistake. Somewhere along the line, this terrible terrible journey, he made a mistake and now he’s lost everything. 

They pull him up. 

They push him back in.

Dying takes a long time, doesn’t it? This is the punishment for his greed. He’s taken money, manipulated people, skirted around the law, loopholed his way out of persecution. Honestly, how is he any different from Hyde? 

They pull him up.

Henry stares blindly up at the ceiling, back arched like a bow as he tries to ward off being shoved back in again. He weeps, water and tears running streaking down his face, his neck, into his damp collar. He blinks furiously through wet eyelashes, eyes burning.

What would Robert say?

Oh god, Robert. 

He’d be so disappointed. He’d be _angry_ , frustrated. Robert… Robert’s always been so patient. He’s always been there, even when Henry was ugly, sick, drunk, he was holding Henry’s hair out of his face. Robert hated parties, people, money, the facade, but he put up with it for Henry. He went to parties, he showed Henry how to talk, how to act, how to smile, how to _dance_ , how to be everything Robert was and despised to be because Henry asked. Robert was always doing that. Going out of his way for Henry. 

They dunk him in again and the only thoughts in his head are of Robert and the mess he’s going to leave behind for him to deal with it. 

They rip him out of the water, one of them jerks suddenly and Henry’s shoved back in with barely a chance to breathe. 

They hold him down for much longer, long past the bubbles, long past the length he’s been under before, his eyes rolling back into his drowning head so far he sees space. 

Drowning. 

But he can’t die, he doesn’t want to. Not now, not yet. There’s too many things he still has to do. In the suffocating abyss of water, deafening in its tranquility, he can’t think of anything but the work he’s never finished or even started- god why, why did he stop? Why did he ever stop his research, his drive, his passion? Wasted years are slipping through his fingers like sand and he can’t do *anything* to stop it but watch and feel his body fail to stay alive. 

This time as his vision blackens and his body sings with fear, Henry thrashes wildly, struggling against the guards and the water trying to kill him. He’s sick of everything trying to kill him, sick of being stopped, sick of every little and big thing that has to upend and ruin _every god damn thing he’s every worked for_. Henry doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to be left here, forgotten and unloved. 

The animal in his brain fights.

This is different from what Hyde makes. This isn’t like a psyching of the mind, this is his whole body, and it’s dying. His whole body is fighting to breath, sucking in water instead of air and his lungs feel like heavy wet bags, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe he can’t breath he can’t breathe he cantbreathhecantbreathe-

They pull him up and he vomits. It’s all water, but he feels the burn of stomach acid in his throat and the backs of his teeth. He vomits, and even after that he’s still coughing. The blood in his ears is roaring, deafening him to the primal labored breathing of a man struggling to stay alive when every force is working against him. 

Through the wild haze, the spots in his eyes, survival in his veins, and fear in every inch of his body, Henry squints through the curtain of wet hair dripping into his eyes and down his face, and he meets Dr Silk’s scarred eyes from the other side of the basin. 

Henry, foolishly, desperately, tries to find something there, in the man’s steady brown eyes. In the seconds before the guards’ hands begin to press down on his shoulders again, and Henry looks into Silk’s eyes, he finds absolutely nothing there.

No pity, compassion, anger, frustration, or joy, just.....

Nothing. 

Silk looks like the dead eyed doctors and nurses that walk the halls with the same monotonous expression, uncaring of the world around them and the work they’re doing, simply dealing with the unwanted dredges of humanity. Despite all they’ve exchanged, through hours interpreting dreams and nightmares (of which Henry has never told another soul, not even himself who simply banishes it the moment it’s done), discussing wolves and the nature of them, the loyalty and endurance they represent, Silk’s _low gentle voice pulling Henry out of his own head when he’s lost in it or trapped under Hyde’s vicious claws, his hateful words drowning out the world_ but Silk still always finding a way through it-

That can’t be it, after everything. There can’t be _nothing_!

“ _Silk_ ,” comes clawing out of his devastated throat, water still spilling from his jaws and he gasps. His head is spinning from the air, the walls moving with the floor like metal sheets shaking in the wind. 

“ _S-silk please!_ ” Henry begs, fighting the hands on his shoulders as they start to push down again. He resist, pushing against the guards with the only strength he has left, legs and shoulders shaking. They push down harder, forcing his face that much closer to the surface, water lapping at his chin, and Henry sobs, begging Silk with his eyes. 

Then, there it is. Any man lesser than Henry when it comes to reading people, would have missed it, but there’s a flicker in Silk’s carefully built professionalism. 

The hands push him down and Henry shrieks, “No!”

He goes under. 

His body is numb as he drowns. It doesn’t feel like water anymore, it’s simply nothing, just a cold void. His lungs suck it in and pump it out through his nose, scorching his sinuses and flooding his brain, stomach, guts. It’s all water now, just water, water, water-

Jekyll lets go and stops fighting. 

Hyde resists. 

Hyde snaps his eyes open, submerged, and he comes into this body like a ghost possessing a host. He locks every muscle in his body like the strings of an ugly mangled violin and he throws the guard into the wall. 

It’s a wild motion, rabid and quick like a beast. He shifts his legs to better stabilize himself, knees bent, and he tears his arm out of the guard’s grip like he’s throwing off a drunk. With a practiced ease, at this point, second nature to him in his three violent years of life, Hyde slams his freed elbow into the guard’s sternum and sends him flying backwards. 

Hyde flings his head above the surface, swallowing what’s in his mouth and holding in everything else. He rounds on the guard to his left, his bad ear ringing as he takes in her shocked surprise. Hyde lays her on her back before she can so much as lift her hands to protect herself. He doesn’t stop there, fists balled like jackknives where he stands over her. He stoops to grab her by the collar with the intent to mess up her face when a hand touches his shoulder. Running on instinct, bar fights and tustles with gangs in alleys sing through his muscles as he rounds on the nurse and his fist crunches into her face, laying her flat on the wet tile floor of this room of torture. Her cry of pain fills his mind with an all consuming rage- pain? _Her pain?_ What does _she_ know of pain?! 

He swings low to fist a hand into her shirt and he hits her again. And again. And again. Blood stains his knuckles and his sleeve. Hyde, wavering on limbs longer than his own, awkwardly balanced, swings his foot into her stomach, hard enough she goes sliding across the floor. 

There’s a noise to Hyde’s left and his neck snaps around to focus on Silk.

Silk’s pressed into the wall, too far from the door, back and palms flat against the wall. The expression on his face is new, something neither he nor Jekyll has ever seen before. It’s fear. It makes him look like a completely different person, and Hyde thinks that they never really knew this man at all. 

Hyde finally opens his mouth, water pours from his open jaws like a waterfall of blood and bile.

There is fear in Silk’s eyes. It’s white hot fear, pressing him into the wall like a cornered animal. The fear in his eyes… It’s so deeply gratifying.

Hyde’s suddenly looking at the floor, pain exploding across his face and a crushing pressure at his back that keeps him pinned to the floor. The guards are on their feet, keeping him down and Silk screams for security. 

Hyde roars, adrenaline spiking and his body wild with life. This body isn’t quite his but he’ll be damned if he lets them keep abusing it. 

They force him down _hard_. It hurts, the pressure on his arms, legs, hips, neck, keep him trapped against the floor with no way to get leverage of any kind. He wheezes under the weight of a knee digging into his spine, breath strangled from his body like an animal caught in a trap. His fingers claw blood streaks into the floor, he thrashes. 

“Hold him still!” Silk’s voice rises above all the commotion, the grunting of guards, Hyde’s growling and groaning. He fights them hard, harder when Silk swings into view with a syringe shaking in his hands. A meaty fist forces its way around his chin. He snaps his jaws, tries to bite it, scratch it, anything. 

The guard forces his head back, keeping his jaw clamped shut as pressure cranes his neck, exposing delicate arteries and vulnerable skin to Silk’s wicked poison. 

The needle breaks his skin and stabs into the vein, deeper from all his thrashing and Silk has to pull away to stab it in again, and then a third time after the guards have Hyde locked so tightly they’re all trembling with the effort. 

The needle goes in again and Silk thumbs the plunger deeply, injecting fiery venom into Hyde’s tender veins. The affect is immediate. It courses through his body, slurring his words, vision, thoughts, movements. He resists, struggling, fearful, he doesn’t want to go to sleep. He doesn’t want to lose control. He groans miserably against the hands crushing him into the ground, fighting to stay awake as his vision darkens. 

_No, I don’t want to sleep again!_

Hyde writhes as his muscles, one by one, check out and stop working. His eyes burn with loss, stomach ill with despair. 

_I don’t want to sleep! No more sleep!_

He falls to that black void, the last thing he sees is the indistinct shape and color of Dr Silk putting him to sleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Warnings: sexual harassment, implied themes of non-con, graphic depictions ofdrowning, attempted drowning, blood and violence, and Hyde**


	11. Hyde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Who’s the monster?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re talking one chapter a month at this point, folks. SMH
> 
> So how we feelin’ guys? Still interested in Walls & Holes? I am.
> 
> I am, because you guys will not BELIEVE the information I’ve been able to get my hands on in all this off time. Yes folks, I have information Straight from the source, Sabrina Cotugno themself (from the official TGS blog and a one on one conversation we had). Imagine my surprise when I found they’d read a few chapters! 
> 
> Anyway, I have renewed motivation and more to work with than I did before so. I hope you guys are ready. 
> 
> We’re getting into the dark stuff now.

Henry wakes up with that same head-full-of-glue feeling, oozing in thick strands and lingering. Henry watches electric bulbs passing overhead like the scenery passing by a carriage window if it were turned on its side. He can't move, his joints feel stiff and rickety, reminiscent of creeping wicker rocking chair _like the kind his mother used to sit in_ , and his head bounces along as he observes the ceiling grow taller taller through foggy black vision.

Nausea returns full force and it takes him several moments to register the scraping of his heels and the strain in his shoulders as guards dragging him down the stairs by his shoulders. _Enforcers carrying a convict to his cell._

Henry Jekyll stares sightlessly at the ceiling as they descend.

* * *

The door closes with a finalizing clang. The lock slides metallically into place, echoing across his tongue and that heavy stone of resignation drops at last into the writhing pit of his stomach. It sits like a hot chunk of ice, scorching a hole in his stomach like a brand. He’s left, alone, breath loud and his pulse roaring in his ears. 

There’s no echo in this room. It’s walls and floors of stuffed padding; yellowed, scratchy, conspicuously stained canvas stuffed with hay. It smells like a barn. 

It’s still and empty and quiet for less than 20 seconds before Hyde has the _audacity_ , to manifest like the oozing wretch of his nightmares, blue and ragged, for the first time in a week. 

He stretches across the floor like a shadow cast by the setting sun and he rises, head first, as if emerging from the depths of a padded pool, with his back unwisely turned to Henry. 

_  
“Due to increased patterns of abnormal behavior and frequent displays of uncontrollable aggression and instability-“_

_“No!” Jekyll begs as they lift him clear off the gurney._

_“-The board and I have elected to prolong your stay and revise your treatment plan to better suit your specific needs, as they are much more severe than we initially realized,“ Silk continues where Henry can’t see him, the volume of his voice increasing to be heard over Henry’s screaming and the rush of water hitting the ceramic bath. “We’ve rearranged your sleeping situation and I’ve already taken care of the paperwork-“_

_“Silk,_ please- AHH _!” Henry’s voice cracks into a shriek when his backside hits the water. The guards on either end of him shift from lowering him into the bath to_ keeping _him in it. It hits his body with a terrible ache, seizing his spine like an electric liquid vice. His body reacts of it’s own volition, twisting and thrashing to _get way_._

_“You’ve been issued solitary confinement until further notice. During this time, you will have no visitors or courtyard time. You will not be permitted to leave the chamber unaccompanied. You will have no contact with anyone outside of your room.”_

_There’s a terrible moment of silence, Henry muted by the punch of ice and frigid cold squeezing his lungs shut. For a second or two Henry’s reality is narrowed down to the all encompassing watery agony and Silk, leaning over the rim of the bath to fill his vision and assert with his deep soft and soothing voice, articulate and enunciated, “Your meals will be taken care of by the nurses and you’ll be watched, 24 hours a day, indefinitely.”  
_

Legs crossed, barefoot and cold, shivering, dripping in water, the nurse’s blood staining his pants, sleep deprived and seated on the canvas floor of his new padded cell - for the first time since he was admitted to Bedlam Mental Asylum, Henry Jekyll is _angry_. 

He is _furious._

_Livid_.

“One week,” He grinds out, voice raspy from all the screaming. 

There’s no response, but he sees the line of Hyde’s shoulders tense. 

The silence frustrates him, making foreign energy surge up his shoulders, shoot through his arms and Henry is suddenly, viciously aware of the straight jacket keeping his arms firmly in place. He feels acutely where it rubs against his elbows and chafes along his wrist. He can already feel a strain in his shoulders where the jacket curls them. A manic energy he’s never felt before settles in his muscles tightly. _That feeling of panic that you feel physically, the animal alarm that sings through your veins when you’re brain realizes it’s trapped, vulnerable. It makes him want to crawl out of his skin, scratch his arms up until they’re free._ But he can’t even shift his elbows and he clenches and unclenches his sore knuckles to try and quell some of that frantic restless energy. “I asked you to wait one _fucking week_.”

The injustice of it comes to light, and Henry wrenches out of his hunched position, body jerking like a livewire. His teeth grind together, sending hot flashes through his nerves as they squeal from the force of his own jaw. His elbows strain against the canvas jacket and he writhes like a tortured animal because he can’t _move_ anymore. 

‘ _Oh, so this is_ my _fault now?_ ’ Hyde whips around, voice shrill and he has the gall to ask Henry that, to _say_ that to his face like it isn’t.

The rage Henry feels is invigorating and possessing all the same, he can’t bring himself to speak. He levels the strongest glare he’s ever conjured, face contorted in a pitch black consuming emotion, familiar yet foreign in that way long suppressed emotions can be. Emotions he’s trained himself not to feel, to ignore. He’s spent so long pretending and convincing people that they’re not there that he’s really got himself into believing it too. 

Rage feels so different now. It feels different when he’s not pretending it isn’t there. 

_And what does Hyde think?_

Hyde’s stubborn, but even _he_ knows a shit situation when it’s stinking up the room like a poisonous fog. 

He knows this might just a little… tiny bit... be slightly possibly his fault… and he knows there are times when it’s best to resolve a problem, put up the white flag and confess he was less right than he thought (one burned city block and an arrest warrant later). Of course he tries to avoid those situations at all costs, surrender is simply not in Edward Hyde’s shared DNA. Hyde has _some_ sense of self-preservation after all, even if it is miniscule. He knows when to stop furiously poking the bear that is Henry Jekyll. But as of roughly several weeks ago that sense has not been particularly keen; overshadowed and smothered by his rabid desire for freedom as it so often is. 

Funny thing about that though, Edward’s prone to forgetting that when it comes to driving the doctor off his rocker. 

But he never thought it would actually… _work_. Back at the Society, back at... home, Hyde could always count on Jekyll’s impressive constitution to get them out of any situation and through the day. And sure, he _had_ been, maybe, possibly actively trying to sort of chip away at that constitution but even after all of those slips, all that _haunting_ and genius monsters and snakes and visions, it wasn’t really _Hyde’s_ fault in the grand scheme of things. That fell on Jekyll! He was the one trying to keep Hyde down in the first place. He should have known better.

………. 

‘ _Okay, so_ maybe _I was laying the spooks and horror on a little thick, but it’s not_ my _fault that some mystery man saw you talking to yourself!_ ’ Hyde counters, scrambling to get his footing. He doesn’t like feeling guilty, especially if it’s about _Jekyll_. Jekyll’s the villain here. ‘You’re _supposed to be the perfect gentleman! Aren’t all gentlemen good at repression?_ ’. 

“What part of repression has anything to do with _hallucinations?!_ ” Jekyll snaps. His eyes are wild. “What part of repression involves keeping me awake for days, whispering horrors and defilements in my ear? What part of _any_ of the awful, wicked things you’ve done to me in the past week _alone_ makes you think-“ Jekyll breaks off, panting through a manic laugh that makes Hyde’s incorporeal skin crawl, “-that fucking ‘Pure English Repression’ has anything to do with it!” 

Hyde spins around in full in a rush of wisping fog, waving a hand dismissively,‘ _Those are the details! You should have been more careful, Jekyll,_ ’ Hyde starts, skillfully redirecting the blame. ‘ _I thought you were supposed to be the careful and smart one. You should have been more careful. None of this is my fault. It’s really your own fault for locking me away. You should know better by now than to keep me under wraps, Henry. You can’t suppress the pure depraved toxicity that you really-_ ‘

“SHUT UP!” Jekyll roars. 

Hyde stops, silenced. 

“Why, why do you have to be so _difficult_?” Jekyll’s voice cracks. Silence ensues, Hyde for once having no answer. 

“Why can’t you take ‘no’ for an answer!? Because of you and your god forsaken impatience, you’ve finally beaten out every bit of strength I had left against you and now I’m _here_ ,” Jekyll pants like a crazed dog. “ _We_ are here, Hyde. You couldn’t cooperate with me for once in your _selfish_ life and now you’ve got me and by _brilliant_ association,” he continues with a nasty smile, “ _yourself_ as well, locked in Bedlam with all the other lunatics and madmen and unloved failures.”

His voice comes from the back of his throat as he speaks, wrought with despair and the clenching anguish of someone who’s been wronged.

“You just _had_ to keep pushing didn’t you? You couldn’t handle a week of laying low in- what did you call it? My sad empty mind? Well, like always, you’ve taken a minor inconvenience, a hiccup in a monu _mental_ amount of freedom you _could_ have had, and blasted it wildly and irreversibly out of proportion. You could have waited for the exhibition to pass, patiently and _quietly_ , and we could have had it all, _Edward_. ” Hyde flinches as his name claws itself wretchedly out of Jekyll's throat, like a banshee pulling itself from a well. Jekyll’s cheeks are red, the most color he’s had in his face for days. “So _yes_ , Hyde. This is without a doubt every bit your fault. Because of you, we’re here in the madhouse of London.”

‘ _Sure, with all the talking you’re doing right now, you fit right in don’t you_ -‘ Hyde starts, seizing the opening. 

“You think I give a damn about _fitting in_?!” Jekyll roars and Hyde shrinks at how quickly Jekyll shuts him up for a second time. Anger is not an emotion of Jekyll’s that Hyde is particularly familiar with considering the limited times he’s encountered it, and he doesn’t like the feeling it gives him at all. “It doesn't matter, nothing _fucking_ matters anymore, you insufferable _child_ \- I’ve already lost it!” Jekyll’s voice changes suddenly, cracking, rasping, and that anger isn’t quite anger anymore. “It’s all gone, all the chances I had. Everything I wanted and had within my reach is _gone_ , it’s all _gone_. I had time, I was close, I was so, so close-“ Jekyll rushes out, choking off his own words. “I just had to make it through the week, one _fucking_ week…” 

Henry inhales shakily, heart thundering wildly in his chest, tears in his eyes.

“I would have been out by now… I could have been home. I would have been able to salvage the damage this caused, it was only five days! God, it was only five...” Jekyll sobs, overwhelmed by it all, suddenly aware of just how deep in it he was. “I’m just another part of London’s insane!”

Hyde watches as Jekyll curls in on himself, his body small in the empty expanse of his new prison for the next who-knows-how-long. 

“I could have been back with Robert, and Rachel, and Jasper… In my own bed with my own clothes and no one would be touching me and making me do things I don’t want to do. No one would hold me down and drug me, or blast me with water, or yell at me… I don’t have to…”

He stops talking finally, curled over himself. Hyde floats in the corner of the room, listening to Jekyll sniff quietly. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

_  
“Please,” Henry begs as the guards set him down on the floor of the padded cell._

_Silk stops and waits for him. Henry looks up form where he’d been staring blearily at Silk’s fine black shoes. He looks up at his face, into his scarred eyes; these cold brown things watching him intently from behind his gold rimmed glasses._

_“Is she alright?”_

_There’s silence between them. It encroaches upon the stillness of the room, and Henry can hear his own heart rattling inside his chest. He waits, not breathing._

_“You broke her nose,” Silk says, voice neutral as always. “She’s missing teeth, and she has a few bruises.”_

_His words rip a devastated noise from Henry’s throat._

_Oh god._

_Oh god, what has he done?_

_Dear god, his rotten soul._

_His rotten, ugly soul, he’s a monster._

_What has he done?  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure this is absolutely riddled with spelling errors, honestly the HTML throws me off. Let me know if you see anything.  
> I spent an APPALLING amount of time reworking this chapter, my lovely beta beat me to death with a veritable number of suggestions and I Love her for it. 
> 
> Someone PL E A S E tell me how to imbed links in notes and images in chapters I’m BEGGING YOU, everything I’ve tried won’t work!!


	12. Robert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert visits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter had a few (several) beginnings that got scrapped. There was one where Robert barges in and Silk tries not to punch him in the face. It was pretty funny but ultimately, not how I wanted to approach this chapter. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long, life has a funny way of timing everything the WORST way. I was pumping out this chapter so fast and then had to stop because my dog’s health took priority. He’s okay now but it’s only temporary! If you love dogs and want to make me love you forever, please consider donating to my dog’s surgery fundraiser —> [Cash for Ca$h](https://www.gofundme.com/f/for-cah-my-dog?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&rcid=dcbc014a9f234fcbbfef518f98432938)
> 
> No warnings this chapter! Unless emotional destruction counts :)

The door opening startles Henry so much that he hears his heartbeat thundering in his ears for an hour afterwards. His head thrums with it like a swollen drum and he almost doesn’t recognize him when he sees who’s stormed through the door.

“Henry,” Robert says, voice filling the room, entering Henry’s 10x10 cell and looking entirely out of place. He crosses the length of the floor in two long strides and gathers Henry in his arms. 

He feels the sudden contact sharply, his body swept in chills, goose bumps spreading from his shoulders down to his toes and back up his neck like a zephyr. Tears spring to Henry’s eyes, he hasn’t touched another person in days. Robert is impossibly warm and Henry shivers against the chill of the room at his back, and allows himself unbidden to lean desperately into his embrace. Robert’s arms close fully around his shoulders, blocking the emptiness of the room from the two of them. 

Silk watches from the door, face giving nothing away. His gray, empty eyes assessing them analytically.

Henry averts his eyes to the floor, to the soft cotton of Robert’s fine coat, desiring privacy. _Can nothing be private? Can he not even have this without feeling as though thousands of eyes are picking him apart like he’s a busted pocket watch?_

The hug ends as quickly as it started and Henry’s body grieves for the lost warmth. Robert holds him at arm’s length, and Henry moves easily under his hands. (He wants too fiercely to reach up and pull Robert back against him. He couldn’t do that, reach up and touch his friend, they took his arms. _He’d never reached for someone before this. He never held anyone in his arms, or took someone’s hand in his and held it just to feel their skin or their pulse beneath in their wrist. Even now, he doesn’t even use them for the trade he preaches about. He uses them to sign tax forms and contracts he can’t afford. He took for granted his own body, something as so fundamental and basic as his own fucking hands. They looked at him and said, “You don’t need your arms, you weren’t using them anyway.”_ )

Robert holds him at arm’s length, brown eyes look him up and down. Henry feels different about the way Robert does it. Certainly Robert scrutinizing him hasn’t ever been something he looked forward to, the man has a certain intuition that’s inconsistent at worst and unnervingly accurate at best. But Henry doesn’t feel like an ancient artifact written in a long dead language that Silk’s trying to translate, _or like a cut of meat someone is trying to gauge the best way to season_. Robert’s looking him over the same way a mother looks over her child after they’ve fallen from a tree, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. His eyes flicker back up and Henry almost forgets where he is.

“Tell me they’re lying,” Robert demands. 

“W-what?” Henry’s winces at the rasp of his voice. He hasn’t spoken since he was moved, hasn’t needed to. He’s tried with the nurse that feeds him but she’s about as responsive as a photograph: staring right back at him, always in the same pose, flat faced and bored.

Robert gesticulates with his hands, indignant, “They told me you _threw someone_! Isn’t that ridiculous? You can’t carry anything that weighs more than a small dog, let alone throw a whole person.”

Henry’s stuttering train of thought comes to a screeching halt as his blood runs to ice. 

“And that you- that you hit someone?” Robert looks into Henry’s eyes, hands back and solid on his shoulders, and Henry surprises himself by how quickly he breaks the contact. Robert appears to think the same, as his demeanor changes and he turns his head at an odd angle. He licks his lips, “Did you?”

Henry’s instinct is to say no, and the realization that he _wants_ to lie against this incriminating evidence, with witnesses, and the word of a man as cold as the walls of this room— it’s more unsettling than facing the truth of Hyde. It would incriminate Henry’s already dubious case more than anything. 

_But God almighty, why does he have to tell_ Lanyon?

Why couldn’t it have been anyone else? Anyone else who cared?

_There are three whole people on that list, you frightened one of them off, the other is blissfully oblivious to all your flaws, and Lanyon’s right in front of you._ His options are scarce; limited to put it nicely.

_Henry wonders if any of the Lodgers care. If his parents would care if they were alive. He feels vulnerable and insecure enough under Lanyon’s eyes to wonder if even_ Frankenstein _cared._

He swallows before he rasps, “Yes.”

He’s not looking at Lanyon but the silence that ensues is informative enough. Henry focuses his attention on the leather of Robert’s shoes. They’re of a nicer material than Silk’s. 

Robert draws back, hands falling from Henry’s shoulders, and he can’t stop himself from looking at him. 

The expression on Robert’s face can’t be anything but confusion. Maybe denial. Henry wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. He’s sure it might have been something like that, but he doesn’t feel as reassured as he hoped he would, especially when Robert’s brow furrows further, wrinkling his handsome face in some unreadably intense emotion. 

“Why is Hyde’s name on your list of contacts?” Robert asks next.

Henry blinks. All prepared responses to what he thought Robert was going to say crumble to dust. His brain stalls, trying to compose itself enough to parse together an answer to that question. He searches Robert’s face, identifies the emotion behind Robert’s eyes. _Jealousy perhaps? Betrayal?_ He looks so closely he sees how tired Robert is under all that bravado, sophistication, theatrics. 

“Why is... B-because-“ Henry starts. 

“Why is his the _only_ name?” Lanyon interrupts, leaning into Henry’s space, the intense emotion unreadable on his face alight in his eyes. It’s betrayal.

Henry’s throat closes, any useful vocabulary abandoning him.

“Don’t _lie to me_ , Henry.” 

Henry’s stunned into silence. There’s a suspended moment of Lanyon waiting, waiting for him to tell him something true, something honest. _Tell him something that isn’t another deflection, an excuse, another little lie to placate him, put him off, to be waved off again, and again, and again. To be told his best friend_ isn’t _crazy, isn’t a madman, isn’t killing himself slowly like he thought he wasn’t anymore._

Robert’s searching his eyes furiously before all the restraint he has seems to snap. 

“Henry _what is going on_?” Robert’s voice rises, thick with distress and frustration. The sound is so unfitting of Robert that Henry feels guilty, like he’s hearing something he shouldn’t. He feels like he’s in violation of something, but he doesn’t know what, and he can’t look away. 

Robert runs a hand through his hair, trying to grab frantically at any of the thoughts flurrying about his head. 

“You don’t- _tell me_ anything anymore! You keep so many secrets and you hide things from me, and now you won’t even talk to me. Do you know how…” Robert fumbles for a different word and relents when it takes a second too long, “ _upsetting_ that is?” Robert looks absolutely frazzled and the sight knocks something inside Henry violently askew. 

“I feel so helpless, Henry.” Robert relents, voice thick. He sits on the mattress, next to Henry, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s going on with you because you won’t tell me, and what the doctors _do_ tell me are nothing short of terrifying.” 

Henry finally begins to see what it is making his friend look so off. He’s seen it on many people, none ever his friend, the sort of expression he doesn’t see until his back is turned and his friend can properly worry. It’s fear. 

Henry looks away. There’s a crushing pain in his chest at Lanyon’s words and he tries furiously to ignore it. _He tries to calm the panic beating against his rib cage. Henry’s gotten very good at keeping a level head when everything falls apart, but watching Lanyon fall apart is like watching the Society burn, the foundation crumble, the earth crack open and leave you free falling, overcome and paralyzed with the inevitable end rushing up at you at thousands of miles an hour-_

_Robert’s not supposed to be the one freaking out_ , his mind refuses, whispering furiously over his anxiety in a voice that’s not his, or Hyde’s.

“But I don’t want to hear it from them,” Lanyon interrupts, cutting off the devastation being wrought across Henry’s already perilous mind. “I need to hear it from you. Those quacks don’t know a lick of what they’re doing. I need to hear it from _you_ Henry. I trust you, I believe you.” 

Henry fights the tears in his eyes. 

“I always have, and I always will.” Lanyon sits up, some of his composure returning to his straight shoulders and back. “Now, I need you to trust and believe _me_.”

Henry can’t think of a thing to say, his insides knotted painfully as his heart tears itself apart, and he feels foul for having nothing to say. Nothing to say to his friend who’s followed him for 15 years even though he had every reason and opportunity to put his time and attention and money into something less hopeless, less controversial, and deluded, and _insane_. He has nothing to say to him, even after he’s put the tender vulnerable inside of his heart in front of Henry in hopes of getting some _honesty from him_ , something best friends should be able to get easily. 

Not in some padded cell in the basement of Bethlam Asylum. 

“Fine,” Robert grinds out, expression pinched. “Don’t tell me.”

Henry resigns to that devastating weight of guilt, helpless under its pressure. 

The silence that follows is long and excruciating. It could be seconds, it could be close to 5 minutes long. It’s palpable and Henry can hear his heart beating in his ears again. When it starts to pick up again he focuses on Robert’s breathing instead, an anomaly in a room where Henry’s only been able to listen to himself.

It itches at his neck and ears, uncomfortable in a way it’s never been before. Silence has always been something he’s been able to engage so easily in with Robert. 

They sit for so long, Henry’s mind wanders unwittingly and he’s seized with another type of concern, one echoed from his last conversation with Rachel. 

“How’s the Society?” His voice is a thick croak and he sniffs and breathes to clear it away. Lanyon sits up from his wallowing hunch and looks at Henry. This time his expression is more relaxed, but not by much. This is something he knows. Robert was never a fan of having to discuss what he doesn’t know.

“Well, it’s a mess to be quite frank, I won’t sugar coat it.” Henry expected that but it still makes him feel queasy. “If it’s not Frankenstein, it’s the Lodgers. If it’s not the Lodgers, it’s Rachel. There’s a half-baked exhibition with no founder organizing it anymore, and its _other_ founder is too busy trying to get his co-founder out of Bedlam hospital.”

The rising fury in Lanyon’s voice shrinks Henry’s resolve. 

“Henry we don’t have any money. The little money we do have was going into the exhibition. That’s not happening with no exhibits or a host. I couldn’t host this sort of thing if my life depended on it even if we _did_ have any lodgers participating in it.”

“What about Jasper, he said he was still doing it.”

“Henry, you know one presentation isn’t going to cut it. And, not to be unkind, but he isn’t exactly a model scientist.” 

Henry feels offended on Jasper’s behalf, but doesn’t say anything. 

Lanyon sighs, “And it certainly doesn’t help that finding you a lawyer isn’t cheap. I had to give _Utterson_ a call,” the vitriol with which Lanyon says his name is nothing short of reassuring that Lanyon’s not completely unraveled. “But because I’m not _you_ it’s growing to be impossible to get a discount out of him. The bastard isn’t cheap, I’ll have to pay him in full and that’s… Going to cost more than an arm and a leg. I’ve already pulled what’s left from the account but I-“

“No.”

Robert blinks at him. 

“What?”

“No.” Henry says, voice hard. 

“‘No’ what?!”

“No! To everything! To Utterson. Don’t.”

“What? Why not!?”

“You said it yourself, the Society has no money. We barely had enough when I was there. We’re housing over 20 people. You can’t take out more, the Society takes priority.”

Robert looks at Henry like he’s grown another head. 

“Wh-“ Robert cuts himself off, shaking his head like it might clear up the haze of _what the fuck_. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Henry-“

“Robert, you can _not_ let the Society go under. You can’t-“ Desperate.

“ _Henry_ ,” Agonized. 

“It’s all I have left! _Years_ of work, blood, sweat, and tears- Robert,” Henry grieves. 

“Henry, you’re asking me to prioritize people that don’t care about you, over _YOU!_ ” Robert shouts, on his feet, and his words cut painfully true, and painfully deep. Henry doesn’t acknowledge his comment. 

“Th-that’s not the point.” Robert cares about him that much?

“The hell it’s not!”

“The point is it’s my work. It’s my _life_ , Robert. What the hell am I supposed to do if I don’t have that?”

_Henry’s voice rings ominously in Robert’s ears, something treacherous and foreboding as all hell as Henry smiles at him, awash in the glow of stage fire and flood lights, sleep deprived and ethereal as he says, delightedly, “I’d like to think I’d do_ anything _for science.”_

“Henry-“

“I don’t have anything else. It’s all I am. How could I live without it? I don’t have _money_ , the Society has it. I don’t have _family_ , the Society was it. Where will Rachel go? I can’t pay her with no money let alone provide a place for her to live. All the Lodgers, they’ll be on the streets again or-or worse. And you wouldn’t have anywhere to go, you’d have to go back to your father, and I’d be alone again, I- What would I do with myself, I-“ It all comes out in such a rush, Robert is alarmed to see tears on Henry’s pale cheeks, now red with anguish as he confesses. “What’s the point of getting out of here if the Society isn’t on the other side?” 

Robert struggles, Henry watches his mouth open and close like a fish. Henry watches through eyes bleary with tears and he tries to compose himself, tries to gain any semblance of the man he used to be, even just a sliver if it just meant Robert would stop _looking at him like that_.

“Henry,” Robert pleads, “There’s… You _know_ there’s more than that! There’s always more, and you- You’re the smartest man I know, on the bloody _planet_. You’re _gifted_ Henry, a man like you could excel _anywhere_.”

A man like him played god and got himself stuck in the madhouse. Henry grinds his teeth, sniffing because he’s lightheaded. 

“I don’t… There’s always _options_. Sometimes they’re not the ones we want, but they’re the best ones that will do us more good in the long run.” 

Robert’s trying so hard to reason with him, Henry could almost be proud. Lanyon is well versed in all affairs except emotional and where Henry has mastered manipulating his own and maneuvering around that of others, Robert remains as emotionally receptive as the rest of the upper class seems to be and up until now, Henry had never appreciated it.

It’s awful to think… But he wishes Robert would be like that right now. He wishes he wasn’t arguing with his friend. He wishes Robert would just… desist. Give up. Walk away. Go back to being _ignorant_ of the bloody mess that hides within Henry’s brain, now gutted and spread about, so Robert can see the entrails of his psychotic break, everything he’s been hiding. 

Henry takes a shaking breath, steals himself, and grinds out, “No.”

Robert steps forward, “Henry I-“

“Excuse me, gentleman,” Dr Silk politely inserts himself from where he was quietly filling the door, guard and nurse filling the gaps between and above his shoulders like a portrait. He bares a light expression on his face, clipboard folded against his chest. Robert looks as though he’d forgotten he was there if the bewildered look on his face at Silk’s interruption is any indicator. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to end this visitation.”

“We’re not finished,” Robert argues, anger in his voice. 

“I’m afraid you are. This meeting is already highly against protocol as it is,” Silk returns. “And seeing as the patient is in an obvious increase of distress, I must _insist_ that you take your leave. Doctor Lanyon.” 

Robert hesitates.

His gaze shoots back over Henry’s bowed head, to the padded walls and floors that he’ll be abandoning his friend to for God knows how much longer. Then he looks to Silk, and the imposing statues that blot the hallway light out over his shoulders, clean white coats, surgical masks over their faces. 

Robert feels like he should be thinking. 

Is he really going to just leave him here? Abandon him? Henry’s asking him to do that. No, he’s _begging him to do that_. Can he do that? 

Henry’s words from that day ring in his head again. Henry may be a liar. But he’s never been dishonest about his work. 

Lanyon thinks he might be afraid of the consequences, if that sick feeling in his stomach means anything. 

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know much of anything anymore. 

He leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	13. Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back.

Silk takes off his glasses, crosses his legs, and stares off into the far distance like a philosopher. “I read in that book, the one I told you about, the one with wolves, do you remember that?”

Henry nods.

“I read that wolves are pack animals. They don’t do well on their own. And when they are on their own, they’re called lone wolves. Usually lone wolves grow sick and die of loneliness unless they’re very strong. I’ve always wondered, why would an animal so loyal and social ever willingly remove itself from its pack?”

“Usually they’re cast out,” Henry tentatively adds, wary of where Silk’s taking the conversation. Silk’s tendency to speak in metaphor and beat around the bush. always mildly annoyed Henry - “They don’t really... get a choice.”

“No, I suppose not.” Silk nods. “But I wonder what compels them to stay away.”

Henry waits for him to continue. Silk shakes his head slowly. 

“They don’t always try to join another pack. In fact, they usually don’t. They stay alone, struggling to survive on their own; hunting, shelter… I suppose it’s easier to feed one wolf rather than an entire pack, but it’s impossible to get anything substantial. One wolf can’t take down an elk like a pack can. They could get hurt. Then what can they do, if they’re too injured to hunt?”

_’_ I grow bored of this conversation, Jekyll. _’_

_“_ You _grow bored of it? You?! You’re the one that won’t stop! What do you have to gain from this?! From torturing me still? This is it, Edward. This is as far as we can go-“_

_‘_ Quite the broken record aren’t you. _’_

_“We_ literally _can’t get lower than this.”_

_’_ That sounds like a challenge. _’_

“You tackle a lot of problems on your own, Henry.” Silk levels him with a stare. “I worry that you’ve tried to tackle problems too big for you, and you’ve gotten injured. So injured that all this time alone is catching up to you. You might think that you’ve managed well, that you’re strong, but you’ve deteriorated.” Silk leans forward in his seat, voice softening. “Your mind isn’t what it used to be, Henry. You’ve spent all this time alone, getting weaker from all the pressure you’re putting on yourself. It’s destroying your mind.”

Henry’s heart throbs in his throat, filling his body with a clenched helpless feeling that feels even more overwhelming in his enclosure. He blinks furiously, frustration making his eyes sting, as the bowl Silk’s been filling finally overflows, “So you’re just going to leave me here, alone, even longer?”

Silk’s expression changes, the tone of his voice conveying an emotion Henry can’t place when he says, “ _Are_ you alone?”

_’I could put you so much lower. You may have our body, but_ I _have our mind. I can just disappear, take a trip in non-existence, and come back when this whole thing blows over. I don’t need to suffer your sentence. This is_ your _punishment, not mine. You’re so desperate to keep everything under your control, shoulder all the responsibility yourself. You can do this alone too.’_

A cold line of dread drips down Henry’s spine. He becomes hyper aware of Hyde’s silhouette on the floor beside him, eyes fixed on Silk. 

This isn’t a friendly check-in. This is an evaluation.

An interrogation.

To find out how much more he’ll have to go through before they get bored. 

“I’ve heard some troubling things, Henry.” Silk’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “The hallway attendant tells me you talk to someone that isn’t in the room. Someone named Hyde.”

Henry stares uncomprehending at Silk. 

“Would this be the same Hyde that’s written in your list of contacts?”

Henry doesn’t answer. 

“I’ve contacted Dr Lanyon and had a word with Ms Pidgley. He was your personal assistant, correct?”

Henry doesn’t answer, blood running colder by the word. 

“I was informed that he was also written into your will.”

_HOW DOES HE KNOW ABOUT THAT?_

“My mentioning of Hyde seems to upset you.”

_NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THAT! I HAVEN’T TOLD ANYONE!_ He leaves it in his cabinet, stowed away far from his desk, where his notes and recipes are, where no one has any reason snooping through his things, no one’s in his office anyway, nobody but him and Lany-

Did.

… 

Did... Robert go through his things? Well it couldn’t have been Rachel, he can’t picture her invading his privacy like that. She’s candid but professional at least, after all these years she still calls him by his title. But Robert— Robert wouldn’t do that, would he? No, of course he would, that man needs control of every aspect of Henry’s day and Henry’s almost always happy to let him have it- but- Why would he do that? Why didn’t he say anything?? How long has he known??

_What else did he find?_

“Henry,” Silk’s voice breaks through Henry’s catastrophic thoughts, completely oblivious to the mental earthquake going on in Henry’s thoughts as the foundation of his crumbling world breaks apart even further. “What was the nature of yours and Hyde’s relationship? Ms Pidgely told me you took him off the street, gave him a job. Is that correct?”

Robert knows. He has to. If he dug through his things— he probably wanted to know more about why his friend was in an asylum, why Henry was attacking nurses and why he was _crazy_ — to find answers, he MUST have found his journal, he must have read everything, he must be _horrified_ , God, what must he think? Does he believe any of it? 

Henry nods, vision blurring. 

“Were you friends?” Silk presses, in a way that he must think is gentle but feels probing. “... Lovers?”

Henry shakes his head, thoughts wild.

“Well, it must have been shocking, when he committed that crime. Against your Society no less, your pride and joy.”

What does Robert think of it? There aren’t many ways to interpret it, not any that wouldn't still paint Henry as utterly mad, utterly _raving_ , a monster. _God, imagine anyone hearing how Henry truly thinks, what he’s thinking now. He can’t even picture the charismatic charming man at parties even remotely near the man sitting cross-legged on a dirty cot across from a doctor picking his brain apart like one picks apart a frog’s anatomy_ —

Either Henry’s insanee and he’s fooled all of London that Edward Hyde exists, that Henry’s been dressing up as a man smaller than him, more _alive_ than him, or he really does turn into a whole other person— entity, _creature_ , his inside out, ugly and mean. Either way, it’s damning. 

A madman or a monster. 

He’s both now, isn’t he? Insane? Crazy?

“Did Hyde ever hurt you, Henry? Was he controlling you? Is that why you think he’s still here?”

He was crazy enough to sever his own soul wasn’t he? Why would anyone do that? Why would he do that? A potion that turns you into the _worst version of yourself_ , who would want that? Who but someone who really was desperate for violence? For sex, alcohol, for being cruel. Why did he do that? What was he thinking? Was he really _that_ lonely? Did he make Hyde because he needed someone else, someone that knows? The real him? The Henry Jekyll that’s ugly, bumbling, starved for something real, visceral, and authentic, even if it’s evil? Even if it’s sin? Sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, being selfish, being Bad. Being uncontrolled, loose, over the top, care free, gluttonous, ravenous, being alive— _Being Hyde?_ It felt so good, but it was terrible for him. Hyde was an addiction worse than drugs, wine, permanent and infectious, spreading like a disease until there’s nothing left of Jekyll, just Hyde. Just Ugly. Just Himself. 

Henry doesn’t answer, too frightened to speak. 

If Hyde wants those things, then Henry does. And if Henry wants those things, then how is he any different from Hyde? He’s just as capable of being those things too. 

“Why are you crying, Henry?” Silk whispers, the room as silent as it’s ever been. The lightbulb buzzes above them and tears fall down Henry’s face. 

Silk waits. 

“Can you tell me what you’re feeling right now?” Silk asks. Hyde hovers just behind Silk’s shoulder. Silk waits. 

“Why do I have to stay in here?” Henry asks, voice thick with distress. “What’s wrong with me?”

Silk leans back in his chair. Henry feels like he already knows the answer. 

“Well… You have to stay here because you’re dangerous.” 

Henry drops his gaze to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion. 

“We don’t know enough about your condition to take risks when it comes to yours and the staff’s safety. We don’t know your triggers yet.”

He speaks slowly— he always talks so slowly, like he’s taking a leisurely walk, articulating every word and syllable. 

Silk leans forward, like he wants to take Henry’s hands in his. Tell him something serious, something important.

“I’m trying to figure those out, so we know where to start. So we can fix you. But to do that, you have to tell me. You have to _tell me what’s wrong_. You can’t keep lying, Henry.”

Henry inhales, tears flowing freely. He can barely see.

He shakes his head. “You can’t fix me.”

Silk studies him, eyes moving across Henry’s wet face, over his bound body. When Silk finally accepts that Henry isn’t going to say any more, he sits up again. 

“I disagree,” Silks says plainly. “I think there’s something that can be done for you. You’re sick, Henry. I’m going to figure out what Hyde has to do with it, and I’m going to cure you.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.

’I grow bored of this conversation, Jekyll.’

“You _grow bored of it. You?! You’re the one that won’t stop! What do you have to gain from this?! From torturing me still? This is it, Edward. This is as far as we can go-“_

‘Quite the broken record aren’t you.’

_“We_ literally _can’t get lower than this.”_

’That sounds like a challenge.’

_There’s a moment of stunned silence._

_Black fills the room._

’I could put you so much lower. You may have our body, but I have our mind. I can just disappear, take a trip in non-existence and come back when this whole thing blows over. I don’t need to suffer your sentence. This is your punishment, not mine. You’re so desperate to keep everything under your control, shoulder all the responsibility yourself. You can do this alone too.’

_Then he was gone._

_And Henry was alone._


	15. Chapter 15

~~~~~

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